With the living, latent legend of the unforgettable echoes of an absolutely prodigious decade, that of the 90s, Almendralejo is preparing to live a fantastic week in sports and football key. The ‘City of Romanticism’as it is the birthplace of José de Espronceda and Carolina Coronado -whom he saw born in the 19th century-, the ‘City of Cordiality’due to the spirit and way of being of its people, the ‘International Wine City’for the generosity and fertility of its clay fields (sea of vines), the ‘City of Cava’for hosting in its district the only designation of origin of this production in the region – it cost its own -, and with some more title in its saddlebags, just now it becomes… the ‘Football City’.
In just one week, seven very intense days, the legendary ‘Francisco de la Hera’ stadium in Almendralejo will receive a match of a national team, the absolute women’s team, world champion, led by Montse Tomé, in their friendly against Canada this Friday, and two matches from the Copa del Rey preview. In them, a Champions League team, the Michel’s Gironaand one from the Conference League, the Real Betis of the engineer Pellegrini, will face, respectively and chronologically, the CD Extremaduraultimately heir to the also legendary CF Extremadura that played two seasons in the First Division in the aforementioned decade of the 90s, and the CD Gévoraa hard-working team from a district of the capital of the province, Badajoz, who have not been allowed to play at ‘home’, due to issues that are too cumbersome to be included in this kind of preview chronicle of something with a lot of polish. These two meetings are scheduled for Wednesday the 30th and Thursday the 31st, both at 9:00 p.m. And all three with live television.
Image of last year’s Cup match between Hernán Cortés and Betis in Almendralejo
It has been 22 years since a Primera has played an official match in Almendralejo, hosting a club named Extremadura. Specifically, the last precedent is from Wednesday, September 12, 2002. So, Joaquín Peiró’s Málaga won on penalties against CF Extremadura of the unforgettable Francisco López Alfarothe ‘magician’ of Seville and Espanyol and even of the Spanish team that lost in the final in Paris, against France and in the 1984 Euro Cup. It has already rained, although in Extremadura it is always missed, too and it is not the unique, the liquid element fallen from the sky. It is true, and it is fair to point it out from the rigor, that two teams from the national soccer elite have recently played in the ‘Francisco de la Hera’ of Almendralejo. But in the face of other Extremaduran rivals to whom, the Barça club, and the city council, owner of the venue, have kindly ceded the facility. Villarreal, who faced CD Santa Amalia, and Real Betis itself, who did so last year against Hernán Cortesin both cases in Copa del Rey matches.
Exponent of the rebellion of the modest
And so, 22 years later, the youngest will be able to experience, in first person, without having to be told and in this frenetic week, what their parents and grandparents have been telling them about what was happening when Almendralejo was part of the ‘League of Stars’, when the First Division teams paid a visit to the humble stadium in which a club, made a legend by its own merits, led the rebellion of the modest; which he himself echoed The Timeswith its ‘kingdom of little fish’, and even the New York Times, with publications that collectors treasure. And a population of barely 25,000 inhabitants at the time, rubbing shoulders with the elite of national football, and, at times, European football, was not something within everyone’s reach, God lives.
But Almendralejo had always pointed out ways and for a long time. Not in vain, and long before (1950s and early 1960s), the same CF Extremadura, today sleeping the dream, they say, that of the righteous, played, consecutively, up to seven seasons in the, then, more than very demanding Second division (1954/55-1960-61). And in the continental version of history, very few people know, and some discussion has cost some of us even providing the evidence, which A club from Almendralejo was the first team from Extremadura to play in a European competition. Specifically, it was ‘El Obrero Extremeño Tenis de Table’, who faced an Austrian team in the Nancy Evans Cup playoffs, the Wiener Sport Clubwho was the one who eliminated it. However, there it remains for the annals of the sports history of this blessed region. The match in Almendralejo was played on September 6, 1992, more than three decades ago.
Back to the beginning, and to the rabid news, which the classic said, what is happening this week in Almendralejomaking the laurels of a not-so-distant, although long-missed, past of the city and its benchmark sports venue green again, It will allow recent generations to experience, in their own flesh and first-hand, something, a little, a small sample at least, of what was experienced in those wonderful years.. The city deserves it, and its citizens, and the many who will visit it from different parts of the region and from outside it, too. Enjoy it, that Almendralejo is once again ‘City of Football’.
