In some corner of Spain, any Sunday afternoon, an 18 -year -old boy from the subsidiary bus with the headphones on. On the other side of the field awaits a 33rd central with the knees punished for years of football without spotlights. The boy runs, faces, starts. The veteran endures, measures, Achica. There are no cameras. There is no OUR. But there is the reality of a duel.
This year, 22 of the 90 teams of 2ª RFEF They are filial. That is, one in four. There were never so many before. A truth was never felt so close that the category without an official name. The filial league already exists, although no one has founded it.
Names fill geography: Real Madrid C, Barça B, Espanyol B, Eibar B, Valencia Mestalla, Girona B, Sports Aragon… They are clubs that do not fight to survive, fight to form. Teams that do not fear descent or sigh for ascent. Theirs are not the titles, but the perfect transitions, the first touches, the accumulated minutes. They are the school inside the circus.
This theater of illusions also comes mud clubs. Small stages with cement stands, metallic ticket offices and a local radio narrating the game with infinite passion. For them, the 2ª RFEF It is a prize, a top, a trench.
And yet, each day face a rival who plays with different rules. A subsidiary does not need to win to continue existing. Your pressure is another. Alignment can change depending on an injury to the first team. The objective is not the marker, but the individual progress. And there the conflict is born. It is not hate, it is not anger. It is a mismatch. The modest plays for bread. The subsidiary, for the scholarship.
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The League that wanted to be and was not
In 2008, the idea of creating an exclusive subsidiary league was about to come true. There were meetings, sketches, proper names such as Roberto Olabe o RICARDO RETAIN trying to draw a parallel path. But he did not set. Perhaps because it was not interested in breaking a system that, although imperfect, offered real fogueo to young talents. Because yes, the mud also teaches.
In England they dared. The Premier League 2with their sub-21 rules and coaches-players like Tom Huddlestone o Jay Spearing Returning to close a circle. A championship that is more laboratory than war. But there he also ended up unleashing criticism due to lack of emotion, for being too artificial.
In Spain, on the other hand, we continue with this strange hybrid: a real competition for some, a training stage for others.
And if it is not a problem, but an opportunity?
Perhaps the conflict is not in the mixture, but in the imbalance. In which the resources of some are disproportionate, compared to those of others. In that sometimes it feels that it is not competed on equal terms, although rivals, trips and results are shared.
But there is also beauty. In that a boy who played with youth yesterday, today marks in a hostile field in front of veterans. In which a modest, without a high performance or nutritionist center, starts a draw to the second team of the Sevilla. In which two worlds coexist under the same umbrella.
