Twelve years in a row in the Honor Division, thirteen of the last fourteen. Two leagues, as many finals. That of the Oviedo Badminton Club is the story of a David who has spent more than a decade beating Goliaths every weekend. Until last Sunday he fell in the qualifying round against Intercity Alicante and lost, at least for the moment, his place in a Spanish badminton elite in which he was already a fixture.
The factors that explain the fall of CB Oviedo are varied. The first and most relevant is the lack of money, a condition, however, that the club knew how to manage during its glory years. “By budget, we were in the position we ended up in, among the three teams below our group,” says Nicolás García, president of the club. “We are completely underfunded compared to most teams in the Honor Division. We do not compete on equal terms,” laments César González, technical director of CB Oviedo. Both demand more support from the Principality, and assume that the subsidy to receive next year will be even scarcer due to the relegation to First Gold.
Although “no one” expected to lose the category, the truth is that the club already assumed that difficult times were coming. “We had to open a transition period,” explains González. “The great players of the last generation were retiring, and the new talents are still developing, they are very young, and our economic situation does not allow us to make big signings, so “We knew we were going to suffer.” Losing Kristina Sotomayor, pregnant, in the middle of the course or having said goodbye to Laura Álvarez, Javi Suárez, Alberto Zapico or Pelayo Pinto was a “handicap” that they were not able to overcome.
“We have to be aware of the circumstances. We know that, in humble clubs like us, there are always difficult times,” García assumes. Now that lean times are coming, CB Oviedo clings to its philosopher’s stone: the quarry. “The idea is that the bulk of the players are from home. Our idea has always been that the boys and girls from Oviedo are the protagonists,” says González, convinced that, by applying this recipe, the return to the elite will be immediate: “We are going to return next year no matter what. We have no doubt that our youth players have the sufficient level to do so.”
The club is resigned to the departure of high-level players from the first team. “People that we were counting on, or that we had half signed for next year, will not be with us. And the normal thing is that the teams that have remained in the Honor Division touch our players,” they assume, emphasizing, however , that this decapitalization will not affect the young talents of the base. “It may even be good for them to gain experience in the first team in a category that they already know – CB Oviedo’s subsidiary competes this year in First Gold -. We want to go up with them and that way, when we return to the Honor Division, they are already fully formed “, projects González, who sees the glass half full: “It’s about taking a step back to gain momentum.”
New division. In First Gold, instead of in September like in the Honor Division, play begins next January with a concentration system in which, at a neutral venue, each team plays three games in four weekends, in order to reduce costs.
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2024-03-28 03:01:57
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