The people of Cataluña showed the rest of the world how to party as they welcomed their team of young superheroes home after leading Sant Andreu to an unexpected Europa Conference League success. Around 30,000 Catalans ripped Turin to shreds before bringing the celebrations back to Barcelona, eclipsing the celebrations of their cross-city glory supporting rivals.
The club’s board celebrated that success by announcing plans to begin construction on the brand new Sant Andreu Stadium. The new stadium will cost £56m, which took £30m out of Ribas’ hard-earned bank balance, was secured with a £22m loan and a £28m sponsorship deal. The board also invested another £4.9m in the training facilities and finally enhanced the junior coaching. And, in December, they rewarded Ribas’ hard work with a new five-year deal on £25k per week.
The big transfer news of the summer was Antonio Vazquez, who got ideas above his station, demanded too much money and his determination fell off a cliff (from 17 to 5). And he forced through a £10m move to second-tier Tenerife to leave the club for the second time. Ribas replaced Vazquez with fellow 6ft 5in Robinson Aponzá for £1.5m from Atlético Nacional, who he had to wait for other non-EU players to gain Spanish nationality before registering, and Rubén Edreira for £1m from Celta. They were joined by North Macedonian defender Blagoj Ilievski for £1m from Vardar Skopje and rapid attacker Souleymane Kouadio for just £17k from Abidjan.
Ribas didn’t see any need to move away from his 4-3-3 approach. He was a little concerned by a lack of depth in attacking positions, but retained faith in the homegrown stars who’d got him into this unexpected position. Filip Vávra and Nduduzo Banda will compete at left back with Endrit Curri on the right being the only non-academy product in the front five completed by Genar Iglesias, Luis Marín, Razvan Gogu and the club’s all-time record goalscorer Óscar Reyes.
Third Season in LaLiga
The Spanish bookies slightly boosted Sant Andreu’s chances, predicting them to finish 14th with title odds of 350/1. Turf Wars rivals FC Barcelona are 5/4 favourites to make it three successive titles, ahead of Real Madrid (6/4), Atlético (14/1) and Sevilla, Villarreal, Betis, Sociedad and Athletic Club (50/1). And that suggests the big two are stronger than ever and the rest of the league has closed up a little.
Sant Andreu kicked off the LaLiga season with a Friday night fixture at home to Las Palmas. And they gave the millions of viewers a show as a Gogu brace, centre back Peter Digha and Reyes earned a dominant 4-1 victory – putting Sant Andreu top of LaLiga for the first time (for less than 24 hours). They built on that with Reyes scoring the only goal at Girona and Vávra and Curri downing Sevilla 2-1 at home. That took them into a big trip to city rivals FC Barcelona, who they’d still only got 1 point from in four meetings and been spanked in every away game… and that continued with a 3-0 defeat, in which Reyes fractured his toe.
That absence hit hard as they missed a mass of chances in 1-0 defeats to Sociedad and at Almeria. But Iglesias stepped up to get them back in form, inspiring a 4-1 win at Mallorca and creating both in a 2-0 success over Osasuna, before Reyes returned to lead a 3-1 win at Betis. However, they ended the year with more injuries and in wretched form and, at the halfway point of the season, they’d already lost as many games as the entirety of last season. That prompted Ribas to strengthen in January, including winger Tormod Hundnes for up to £6.5m from Bodo/Glimt, midfielder Leo Lah, who had 5 assists in 6 Europa League games, for £1.4m from Koper and defender Reuben Gyesi for £120k from Accra Lions.
Aponzá was registered in January and got his first goal in a 3-1 win at Las Palmas. They then held their own against FC Barcelona, having the better first-half chances, only to get undone by a Yamal double.
They generally started 2034 well, despite a disappointing 5-2 defeat at home to high-flying Sporting Gijón, who were in 4th, one place and 2 points above Sant Andreu, with 10 games remaining. However, consecutive defeats to Villarreal and Mallorca and a dire 0-0 at Osasuna put pay to any outside hopes of Champions League qualification. Despite a bit of a shaky finish to the season, Marín and Reyes earned a 2-1 win over Valencia to secure a record-high finish of 6th place on the final day. And a huge shoutout to Espanyol and Gijón for finishing 3rd and 4th!
Sant Andreu finished on 58 points (the same as least season and 1 point less than the previous season), after 17 wins, 7 draws and 14 defeats, scoring 56 and conceding 51. Reyes was the 18th-top scorer with 11 in 26, but Iglesias was the leading assister with 12, one more than Bellingham and Mbappé. Curri and Gogu had the 8th-most key passes (86), and Curri created the 5th-most chances (24) and had the 2nd-best expected assists (11.27). While giant right back Giorgios Christoforou succeeded Iglesias in winning the league’s Young Player of the Year.
Step Up To Europa League
The Conference League success sent Sant Andreu straight into the Europa League group stage. They kicked off with the improving Yilson Cuenca’s screamer opening the scoring before a Gogu brace wrapped up a 3-0 home win over Wolfsburg. Two trips to France followed, starting at surprise package FC Annecy, where striker Mohamed Haoufadi equalised before Cuenca scored the winner, before a Marín double downed Reims 3-0. Edreira’s first two goals secured a 2-1 win for a rotated side at Midtjylland and Cuenca inspired a 3-1 victory over Rapid Wien to go top of the group. Reyes’ brace led a 3-0 win over Maccabi Haifa, which confirmed a top-eight finish, and a rotated side beat Shakhtar 3-2 away before finishing with a 1-0 win over Bodo. That ensured they topped the group with a 100% record!
That teed up a last 16 clash with Lazio, and a late Reyes goal nicked a 3-2 win after throwing away a two-goal lead in Italy. And, after giving the first 11 a much-needed rest, Reyes, Curri, Marín and Banda strikes secured a thumping 4-1 home success. A much tougher challenge followed as they faced an elderly Newcastle in the last eight. But a superb home performance saw youth win out as Sant Andreu seized complete control with Marín’s early strike, a Vávra header and Gogu and Curri goals after the break earning an impressive 4-0 victory. And a 2-2 in England sent them into the semis.
Sant Andreu got an all-Spanish semi against Atlético, who they hadn’t beaten in five league meetings to date, while Ajax faced Sporting. That trend looked likely to continue as Atlético dominated the opening stages of the first leg in Barcelona. But Ribas’ tactical switch, moving to a more cautious strikerless approach he’d been finetuning, completely changed the match. The hosts started to get into the game and Iglesias got in behind to cross for Reyes to tap in. Atlético looked to go more aggressive after an hour, and it cost them as a brilliant counter launched by an Álvarez long throw ended up with an unmarked Cuenca, who squared for Reyes to tap in his second. And, after scoring both shots on target, Sant Andreu claimed their first win against Spain’s big three! Ribas stuck with that approach in Madrid, and it worked again as Marín and another Reyes tap-in secured a 2-1 victory. And that sent Sant Andreu into consecutive European finals!
Two weeks later, fans from Spain and Portugal headed north to Paris as fans of Sant Andreu and Sporting CP, who defeated Ajax 4-2 on aggregate, descended on Parc des Princes for the Europa League Final. This, of course, was Sant Andreu’s first Europa League Final and Sporting’s second, having lost to CSKA Moscow in 2005 and Man United in 2030. So whatever happened, a new name would be on the trophy. Ribas had no injury concerns, with Rojas just about back to full fitness, so he lined up:
Álvarez; Christoforou, Digha, Vávra, Banda; Pedro; Curri, Marín, Gogu, Iglesias; Reyes
Subs: Aponzá, González, Rojas, Lah, Cuenca, Hundnes, Hoban, Ilievski
Sant Andreu started brightly, with Marín firing wide from a narrow angle after 5 minutes and having 5 shots to 0 in the first 20 minutes. And they took advantage of that as a lovely passing move ended up with Marín, who beat two defenders and teed up Reyes for yet another tap-in. The tide continued after the break and, 10 minutes into the second half, Marín had a shot well saved. From the resulting corner, they played short and it ended up at the feet of Banda to score his first goal since the opening day of the season. Sporting suddenly went on the front foot and equalised, and the tide turned as Iglesias picked up a second yellow. So Ribas went into full defensive mode, and they nullified any Sporting threat to hold on for a 2-1 victory.
Sant Andreu won the Europa League 12 months on from winning the Conference League!
Sant Andreu were the top scorers in the Europa League with 39 goals, Reyes was the 6th top scorer with 8 in 9 and Marín led the way with 9 assists and 0.92 per 90 minutes. And Marín deservedly won the competition’s Young Player of the Season.
Celebrating Consecutive European Titles!
Ribas was delighted with the team’s performance in Europe, backing up their maiden major honour in the Conference League by lifting the club’s first Europa League. And that meant Sant Andreu would be playing in the Champions League next season! Reyes again topped the scoring chart with 19 in 36, followed by Marín (13), Gogu (11), Curri (10) and Cuenca (8), while Iglesias led the assists with 17, followed by Marín (12), Curri (10), Gogu (9) and Cuenca (8).
In November, Marín became the first Sant Andreu player to be called up for the Spain squad. A few days later, he became the first academy product to play for Spain as he started a 2-0 World Cup Qualifying win in Georgia. He finally ended his unhappiness at the club a few months later, which prompted Ribas to smash his wage structure, dishing out £93k per week to keep him for another four years. And he was joined in the Spain squad by Reyes for the World Cup preliminary squad at the end of the season. Reyes failed to make the final squad before Marín scored his first goal in a World Cup win over Colombia. And, as you can see from the image above, he’s become a truly exceptional talent.
So Sant Andreu won another trophy, but what about their Turf Wars rivals FC Barcelona? Well, thankfully, they didn’t win a 3rd straight LaLiga title, but they did win Supercopa and the UEFA Super Cup. Interestingly, Sant Andreu’s season ticket price surpassed that of Barcelona for the first time, but the big team’s dominant wages and values continues.
How would Sant Andreu fare as they stepped up to the Champions League? And could they possibly do an unprecedented European treble? Join us next Monday to find out!
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