Proud of their partners, Barça, Athletic, Real Madrid and Osasuna refer to the football of yesteryear in the fight for the title
The Cup has rewarded football’s most classic, represented by the only four clubs not forced to become public limited companies by the 1990 Sports Act and are the pride of their members. At a time when great magnates who have nothing to do with football, owners of empires who venture into this business with greater or lesser success and even state clubs try to shine in Europe, the Copa del Rey semi-finals refer to the old days, with the three most important team winners of the league and someone who has never been champion, but is a big revelation of the season.
Barcelona (31 cup titles), Athletic (23) and Real Madrid (19), in addition to being owned by their social masses, as well as Osasuna (2005 runners-up), are the only three teams always in the First Division. The Navarrese team also played in second and third place, but with one of the lowest budgets in the top division and one of the most important youth academies in Spain, fighting in the elite for the fourth consecutive year.
On his return to the semi-finals 18 years later, Osasuna delivered the blow in the KO tournament by knocking out the current champions (Betis) and also sacking one of the most cup-carrying teams of the last century (Seville). In the XXI, the King of Cups (seven Barça titles since 2000) reigns supreme. Barça, after being on the verge of bankruptcy, is now the seventh richest club in the world with over 143,000 members and, relaunched by levers, repeats the semi-finals two years later with a record budget of 1,255 million euros.
Real Madrid’s club for this season is 770 million, but its nearly 100,000 members pride themselves on owning the second most economically powerful club in the world, second only to Manchester City. The 100 most valuable also include Athletic (rank 51 according to Transfermartk) and Osasuna (rank 78).
However, the sporting merit of the club from Biscay and Navarra is light years ahead of the two giants of Spanish football, with the Bilbao philosophy of only including footballers born or trained in the Basque Country or Navarra and the rojillo also almost exclusively represented by national players.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
