Real Madrid have never been too good at sharing the spotlight with their neighbours down in Butarque.
On both occasions that Leganes won promotion in the last five years — they got out of the third division in 2013-14 and the second division in 2015-16 — Real lifted the Champions League after beating city rivals Atletico Madrid.
Ten miles separate Real’s Santiago Bernabeu with Leganes’ Butarque stadium and while Los Blancos fans may have long patronised their neighbours in the south of Madrid, the Pepineros — the cucumbers as they are nicknamed, given their rich agricultural history for producing the vegetable — have more than proven they can hold their own at Spain’s top table now.
Leganes emerged from potentially bankruptcy to rise from the third division and into LaLiga
Real Madrid overshadowed Leganes’ recent promotions by winning the Champions League
‘The secret? The secret is to believe you can do it, work really hard and I think you need a bit of luck in this life, too,’ lifelong supporter and now head of communications Victor Marin tells Sportsmail.
It hasn’t always been this way, Leganes fans seeing the game’s finest talents descend on their house and people asking for the club’s secret to success.
There was a time, 10 years ago when, slumped in the third division, the club was on the precipice; there were those who were scared the club could disappear for good.
It was Parquesur, one of the largest shopping centres in Europe, or the street named after heavy metal stars AC/DC that was synonymous with Leganes for a long time, not the football team.
Club president Ruben Fernandez had left players without wages and a debt of €500,000 had been built up. Local media DLeganes later reported a number of irregularities with Fernandez’s behaviour with finances and simply put, the club was being driven into financial oblivion.
When Atletico Madrid’s ‘B’ team came to play at Butarque in December 2008, Leganes famously kicked the ball out of play from kick off and every member of the team dropped to one knee, refusing to play as a protest for not being paid. The strike was a watershed moment for the whole club.
Players took to one knee during a game in December 2008 as a protest against unpaid wages
Felipe Moreno (left) and Victoria Pavon (right) came in weeks later to save the stricken club
There was no sponsor for the shirt or the stadium and for Fernandez, a lack of income streams had the club on the brink before a local family felt compelled to do their duty for the city and save the side.
Husband and wife Felipe Moreno and Victoria Pavon, a wealthy couple from Leganes who made their money in real estate, stepped forward on December 24, 2008, to give supporters an early Christmas present.
The debt of €500,000 was cleared instantly, playing and non-playing staff were paid and with Moreno and Pavon holding a majority 51 per cent stake in the club, in an instant, optimism returned and fears of extinction vanished.
It remains one of the biggest turning points in the club’s 91-year history.
The financial gap to those at the Bernabeu was never more obvious than when their more famous neighbours would go on to flaunt their extreme wealth months later with the £80million world record signing of Cristiano Ronaldo. At the time the Portuguese’s transfer fee was more than double the entire value of Leganes.
Nobody on the streets of Leganes would have believed a decade on that the sides would meet as equals in La Liga.
‘When I was a child I used to think “We’ll never play on La Liga,”‘ Hugo Ghetto, a lifelong Leganes fan, confessed to Sportsmail.
Optimism returned to the terraces and the side began to connect with the local community
Success soon followed as an away win at CD Mirandes saw them win promotion to LaLiga
‘Leganes was a humble team with just 2000 supporters. Nobody expected the rise to La Liga. In fact, after 10 long seasons in Second division B (Spanish third division), everybody thought that we’ll never come back to second division.
‘The day we got promoted in Hospitalet (to reach the second division) is considered as the end of a long nightmare for Leganes supporters.’
A lot has changed in Butarque, the changing rooms have had a total makeover, the number of VIP boxes has increased ten-fold and the teams Leganes take on these days are known across the world.
But plenty has remained the same as when Moreno and Pavon, now the club’s president, arrived to pick up the pieces of a club on its knees.
There is a sign every player sees when they walk out of the home changing room on a match day which reads: ‘El talento depende de la inspiracion, pero el esfuerzo depende de cada uno‘. Talent depends on inspiration, but effort depends on every one.
And there really is a sense that from the ground staff to the scouts trawling through footage of matches in China and South Africa ‘in search of the next Messi,’ effort and spirit is what got them to the top tier, and effort is the minimum they can give to try and stay there.
Take Marin, he started volunteering in the third division days to help grow the club’s presence online and in the local community where he would see most people walking round in Real Madrid and Barcelona shirts.
There were big celebrations after the match as the club reached the top flight for the first time
Players held up one finger to represent the first division as the small club defied the odds
In a region of 200,000 people, the goal was to put the club on the map of its own community and give people a reason to come and follow a side that had, until 1992-93, not been professional.
Now he heads up the club’s entire marketing and communications department and is surrounded by fellow staff members who have grown up as ardent fans of the club. That passion and fandom is infectious, even on a fleeting visit.
‘When Madrid win a title they celebrate a lot,’ he adds. ‘When we win a match, we celebrate a lot.’
That sentiment could not be more true as they prepare to take on Real at the Bernabeu on Wednesday.
The club has gained the respect of clubs across Spain, for their humorous and adventurous approach to social media, quirky initiatives such as handing out cucumbers to rival clubs on their first visit to Butarque, their focus on projects in the community and their organic growth on the pitch – the record transfer fee paid is just £5m for Brighton target Youssef En-Nesyri.
Managers have come and gone at the club — none more recent than the departure of former Southampton manager Mauricio Pellegrino last week following their disappointing start to the season — but Asier Garitano is woven into the club’s history forever. For he was the man who got supporters like Ghetto dreaming they could be greater than the sum of their parts.
‘In the second division everybody was happy,’ he explains. ‘It was the place where we wanted to be!
Fans pinpoint the impact of Asier Garitano (left) who had them dreaming of greatness
The club have built up a loyal fanbase that are among the most passionate in the country
‘If you support a small team, you are pessimistic about football but we won nine matches in a row, got to the first position and then Asier Garitano, our basque coach who only speaks to say something important, said: ‘Our target is La Liga’.
‘Nobody outside Leganes believed him, but he got it.’
On May 28, 2016, the city of Madrid stood still for the Champions League final between Real and Atletico. Eight days later something far bigger happened, something even more incomprehensible, and yet few would have even been aware of it in the centre of the city.
Leganes triumphed 1-0 away at CD Mirandes to win promotion to La Liga for the first time in their history. Players pulled on blue wigs, doused themselves in champagne in the dressing room and heaped praise Pavon and Moreno.
Fans turned the main square into a sea of blue and white and all the while, those in the capital were dismissing the rise of their neighbours in the south.
‘It was a dream come true,’ Ghetto, who was there to witness the famous night at the Estadio Municipal de Anduva, said. ‘That night against Mirandes, my mobile phone ran out of battery, all my friends and family were calling me or texting me! I’ll never forget it.’
There is plenty to like about Leganes, and talk of the club being many people’s second team is far from surprising after a walk through the grounds.
From the mascot ‘Super Pepino’ — who gained worldwide recognition after going viral on social media last year — to the unassuming players who, in keeping with the club’s ethos, leave egos at the door in a bid to keep the club punching above their weight.
Their biggest ever win came against Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals in 2018
The south Madrid side stunned their big-spending neighbours to knock them out at home
Heading to the Bernabeu is always a daunting prospect for sides struggling domestically in La Liga, regardless of the form shown by Zinedine Zidane’s side.
But they can be beaten on their own patch. Leganes have been there and done it.
Victory in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals in 2018 was Zidane’s ‘worst night’ as Madrid boss and the patronising, the belittling from Real’s fans would end right then and there.
Fans returned to the training ground to celebrate with players after their shock triumph and there was a sense that after years of hard work, now the world of football would really sit up and take notice of the boys from Butarque.
The amazing rise to the top comes with an asterisk that those working at the club are well aware of – relegation is like a cloud that never leaves, threatening to take much of the hard work away with every passing season.
Victory over Real Mallorca was just their first of the season and Martin Braithwaite’s goal was just their fifth from the opening 10 matches.
‘Our heads and our limbs were weighed down,’ caretaker boss Luis Cembranos said.
‘We knew how to suffer, to be together more than ever. Now the fans can see that it is possible. We have to believe in what we can do, this should be a turning point for the team.’
Things have started slowly this season but the club hope their last win can galvanise them
And so they head north bottom of the division, still brimming with the excitement that filled supporters on their first visit as a top flight team three years ago.
‘We are trying to tell people don’t get used to this,’ Marin adds before Sportsmail leaves.
‘It is important to tell people that every year we can be in the first division is the best for us. Last year we beat Barcelona 2-1 here in Butarque and that was a dream for us. Our mission now, our goal, is to tell people not to get used to this.
‘I think when you get used to first division to see Messi, to see Bale, to see all the big players, if you get used to this it is really bad. We want to be excited every year.’
So it is excitement, rather than fear, that fills fans and players alike ahead of their latest dual with Real. That, after all, is sentimiento pepinero – the cucumber feeling.