Turf Wars | Revolució Quadribarrats | Part 7: Homegrown Trio Ignite LaLiga Promotion Dreams

The new, true pride of Cataluña, Unió Esportiva Sant Andreu, consolidated their position in Spain’s second tier for a third season, thanks largely to the goal contributions of their homegrown academy products. Manager Oriol Ribas now faced the challenge of reshaping the squad to try and build on two 15th-place finishes.

The club’s growth began as the board announced plans to further expand Narcís Sala by another 1,419 seats, taking it to a capacity of 11,032. It also approved requests for improved youth recruitment and junior coaching, taking them to excellent and adequate, spent £1.8m on enhancing the training facilities and, in December, accepted Ribas’ request to begin studying for his Continental C License.

Those prospects weren’t aided by senior players like captain Jesús and defenders Galde and Madou Murcia, who decided they were too big for the club and refused to sign new deals. So Ribas sold them all for a combined £500k, while homegrown winger Aureli joined Dijon for £500k. He also allowed six players, including midfielder Dani Ávila, to leave, freeing up £10k in wages, and sent 23 players out on loan for first-team experience.

The rebuild began with Ribas breaking the club’s transfer record to bring in midfielder Lassana dos Santos for £150k from Génération Foot. He was joined by Albanian attacker Endrit Curri for £150k, Ivorian midfielder Rodrigue Kouadio for £4k and FC Barcelona graduate full back Raúl Expósito on a free. Ribas also promoted young winger Genar Iglesias, who’d returned from a loan spell at Cornellá as one of the best players at the club, along with full backs Pablo Crusells and Daniel Hoban and winger Zakaria Ouazni.

Ribas tweaked his approach to get the new players into the team, with Kouadio competing with Razvan Gogu to play alongside Luis Marín behind striker Óscar Reyes and Iglesias and Curri playing on the wings. He created two versions, with the below for away games and a more aggressive approach with Marín and Kouadio staying higher.

Impressive Start to 3rd Season in LaLiga 2

The bookies still didn’t fancy Sant Andreu’s chances, predicting them to finish 16th in LaLiga 2 with title odds of 50/1. Fellow Barcelona-based side Espanyol are 8/5 favourites, followed by also relegated Mallorca (13/8) and Real Valladolid (10/3), Las Palmas (also 10/3), Almería (4/1) and Levante (7/1).

dos Santos’ first goal earned a point at Andorra, before a Reyes brace inspired an impressive 3-1 win over Almería and Razvan Gogu followed suit as they won 4-1 at Getafe and former captain Jesús. The strong start continued, and a 3-1 win at home to Mirandés saw Sant Andreu go top of LaLiga 2 for the first time in late September.

The form eventually dropped off despite remaining competitive, including a 2-1 defeat at home to Las Palmas, for whom Marc Guiu, who earned half of Sant Andreu’s entire wage spend, scored twice. However, another Reyes hat trick, which already took him to 18 goals for the season, inspired arguably the biggest win in Sant Andreu history, inspiring a 4-2 victory at promotion favourites Mallorca. And that left the Catalan side top of LaLiga 2 heading into the winter break with a 6-point advantage over Espanyol and 9 points clear of Valladolid in 3rd.

A late Reyes goal ensured Sant Andreu kicked off 2031 with a share of the points at home to Tenerife. However, the ongoing struggles against their cross-city rivals continued as they yet again lost 2-1 at Barcelona Atlétic. That began a tricky spell at the start of the year as they went five games without a win, which ended with a strong 2-1 win at Zaragoza. That was backed up with the rapidly improving Iglesias inspiring a 4-1 victory over Oviedo, which extended their lead to 7 points with 12 games remaining.

Catalan Excitement Mounts Ahead of Promotion Push

An injury-hit side lost at home to Valladolid, but responded in style as Reyes broke the club record for most goals in a season in a 5-2 win at Murcia. Marín’s first career hat trick downed Cornellá 4-0 and he backed that up by scoring twice in a superb 3-1 victory at Espanyol. And out of nowhere, the clubs around them fell apart, which saw Valladolid jump from 9th to 4th, and Sant Andreu move 14 points clear with 7 games remaining.

Gameday 36 – Elche (12th, home): Sant Andreu began the title race with another flurry of injuries and slipped to a 1-0 defeat at home to Elche, managed by former Leeds attacker Pablo Hernández. Zaragoza also drew but Tenerife beat Racing 3-1 to close the gap to 12 points.

Gameday 37 – Levante (,away): The young starlets helped Sant Andreu bounce back as Iglesias laid on goals for Reyes and Marín as they cruised to a 3-0 win at Levante. That secured at least a playoff place, while Zaragoza won 4-1 at Murcia but Levante lost 1-0 at Oviedo, dropping 14 points back from the leaders with 5 games to go.

Gameday 38 – Eibar (17th, home): That meant Sant Andreu could wrap up promotion and potentially the title with victory over Eibar. Gogu went close following a cheeky short corner routine as they bossed the first half by 11 shots to 3. They got a break as an Eibar goal was disallowed for offside, and went down the other end to score as Iglesias passed for Marín to fire into the top corner. Iglesias hit the post in injury time but they cruised to a dominant 1-0 win that secured the title.

Sant Andreu won LaLiga 2 and the club’s first major honour!

Sant Andreu went on to win the league by 10 points from Espanyol, finishing on 86 points after 26 wins, 8 draws and 8 defeats. They topped the league with 92 goals scored and conceded the 7th-fewest 55, despite only Murcia having fewer than their 3 penalties and scoring just 5 goals from set pieces. Sant Andreu also created the most chances (189) and had the most shots (676), along with the most high-intensity sprints (6,017), 2nd-most dribbles (720), 5th-most possession (54%), the 5th-best conversion rate (13%), the 6th-best cross completion (20%), the 8th-most completed passes (21,899),

Reyes was the league’s top scorer with 31, Iglesias was the best player with a 7.40 rating, with Reyes 11th and midfielder Pedro Rodríguez 16th (7.20 and 7.18), and had the 2nd-most assists with 18. Marín had the 3rd-most key passes (115) and the most open play key passes (109) and Pedro attempted the 3rd-most passes (3,457). While Iglesias created the 3rd-most chances (40) and the 5th-most dribbles/90 (7.44), along with making the most tackles/90 (3.92) and the most pressures attempted and completed (597 and 180). dos Santos and his centre back partner Abdulaziz Al-Shammari made the most and 3rd-most interceptions (182 and 164) and dos Santos won the 3rd-most headers (78%).

Unexpected Success Fuels Turf Wars Excitement

Ribas knew his young stars would be under-rated by many, but he certainly hadn’t expected them to fire Sant Andreu to LaLiga 2 glory! The league title and promotion meant that Turf Wars would heat up next season. Sant Andreu not only finished above Barcelona Atlétic for the first time, but they would compete with their cross-city rivals FC Barcelona for the first time next season.

The unexpected success was predominantly thanks to the massive progression of the homegrown trio of Reyes, Marín and Iglesias, who were already considered LaLiga standard playersm along with dos Santos, Gogu, Kouadio and Pedro. Reyes became the first Sant Andreu player to score 30 goals in a season, leading the way with 32 in 40 plus 7 assists. Marín was almost as good with 17 goals and 12 assists, while Iglesias led the assists chart with 20 plus 4 goals. Gogu also impressed with 10 goals and 10 assists, along with Kouadio (9 goals and 2 assists) and Curri (6 goals and 13 assists).

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dos Santos became the first Sant Andreu player to be named on the NxGn list as he came in at number 30. They also had a decent, if slightly underwhelming, youth intake, led by 6ft 7in 5-star potential striker Conrad Torra and 4.5-star potential midfielder Javi Oliveira.

So with Sant Andreu gearing up to face FC Barcelona for the first time, how did their Catalan rivals fare this season? Well, for the first time ever, Sant Andreu not only won more trophies than FC Barcelona, they also spent more money. Barca didn’t sign a single player and won nothing, finishing 3rd in LaLiga.

While Ribas was delighted with his young squad’s progress this season, they now faced a mammoth challenge to step up to Spain’s top tier for the first time. Sant Andreu were only spending £49k a week on wages, compared to the lowest in LaLiga being Albacete’s £286k and the lowest-spending team to survive relegation, Leganés, had a wage bill of £528k.

Ribas would, of course, remain loyal to his young stars. But would that be enough to survive in LaLiga? And would he make any additions to the squad to boost their chances? Join us next Monday to find out!