Historical teams, millionaires and with an important weight in Spanish soccer will fight until May not to descend to the ruinous category of First RFEF. For Cartagena, relegation is someone else’s war, a battle won with the victory last Sunday in Ponferrada (0-3). There are twelve days left, the mattress is 15 points and salvation is already virtual for the albinegro team. Only an unlikely carom would prevent the club from planning its fourth consecutive season in professional football.
This is important. Except for a capital catastrophe, the albinegro team is going to break its ceiling and will play for the fourth consecutive year in professional football, it remains to be seen if in the Second or First Division. Cartagena had its peak after promotion in Alcoy, when it was part of LaLiga from 2009 to 2012. The current campaign is also the third, with the difference that the project is growing more and more: in 2020/21 the salvation, in 2021/22 the ninth position was reached; and this course the dream of the ‘playoff’ remains intact.
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555
Cartagena has not stepped on the relegation spots for days, since August 30, 2021 when they beat Zaragoza. -
40
million euros of salary limit add up to Málaga, Oviedo, Sporting and Zaragoza, in the lower part of the table.
On March 7, the Efesé has passed with flying colors the most important exam of the course: maintaining the category. Curiously, the Albinegro team has achieved its number one goal in the most complicated season of all, conditioned by the rain of millions from the CVC fund to the Spanish league. In this context, the economic differences are enormous: the rich are richer and the classification is divided between one and the other.
THE DATA The albinegros have almost certain permanence in the most difficult season of all, due to the rain of millions from the CVC fund
Time to advance work
In this new jungle, Efesé started like a rat’s tail: with one of the lowest budgets in the Second Division and the reconstruction of a squad, last summer, without the pillars Gallar, Rubén Castro, Bodiger and Dauda. Thirty days later, permanence is practically a reality in Cartagena. It seems impossible that the team, at a very good moment, lose everything until May and the clubs below give the growth spurt. The sports commission is already analyzing players for the next season; and the squad, as happened last year, must agree to a bonus in the hypothetical case of being promoted to First Division.
Right now, fourteen of the twenty-two Second Division teams would be exchanged for Cartagena. Four of them (Lugo, Ibiza, Málaga and Ponferradina) have a foot and a half in the First RFEF; another five (Oviedo, Zaragoza, Andorra, Sporting and Racing) go with the noose around their necks; and the rest are in no man’s land and without competitive spice in the twelve days that remain ahead.
Now, the final stretch of the season is a battle for many teams that want to avoid relegation. In that package are rich clubs like Málaga, which has a salary limit of 11.5 million euros; others aimlessly like Zaragoza, with 10.1; and the two Asturians, one more year away from the ‘playoff’, first Oviedo (9.7) and then Sporting (8.5). They are almost 40 million euros invested in not being even in the middle part of the classification. This is a foreign war for Cartagena, which despite having the fourth lowest limit of all (6.4) lives completely away from what, in theory, should be their battle.
The albinegro team celebrates 555 days today without stepping on the relegation places to First RFEF. There are 80 weeks, specifically those that have elapsed since August 30, 2021. That day, Efesé left the red zone by beating Zaragoza at Lo Romareda, on matchday 3 of the 2021/22 season. Since then, Luis Carrión’s boys have neither set foot nor come close to that hot spot.
The earliest year
In the first season, Cartagena achieved mathematical salvation on matchday 40; and the last one was ahead of the 37th, when the albinegros thrashed Girona at the Cartagonova (3-0) and Amorebieta, who marked the relegation zone, played on their visit to San Sebastián (2-1). At this point in the year, Efesé had a cushion of 14 points and Real Sociedad B still dreamed of the impossible, only 4 away from remaining.
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This time, the panorama is hardly changeable. The team that marks the relegation zone, Ponferradina, has 6 salvation. 10 have gone to Málaga, while Ibiza and Lugo have 12. The rest of those involved (Oviedo, Zaragoza, Andorra, Sporting and Racing) have to do very badly to fall into the well. The bar is very low despite the push from CVC.
Cartagena, whether it reaches the ‘playoffs’ or not, will end the course with a record: reaching 636 days without even being close to burning. Although it is not his obligation, due to budget, he has the fight for sixth place within reach; or in surpassing, at least, the ninth of last year.
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