A Espanyol VIP: 24% of former Primera players go up in one year

Despite the defeat against Cartagena, no one obvious that Espanyol's season achieved his diploma at La Romareda. The parakeet team achieved the fifth promotion in its history, all of them the season after having been relegated, so the Second division it continues to be a transit for the centennial Barcelonan entity, one of the historic clubs and founders of the championship. But apart from staying true to their traditions, Vicente Moreno's team has managed to live in that area LaLiga SmartBank VIP and cultivate another stat that compliments your season.

Since LaLiga decided to suppress the promotion between the third and fourth of Segunda and the 18 and 17 of Primera (1999), only 15 of the 63 teams that were promoted were former Primera. That represents 24%, a group now joined by Espanyol and, probably, by Mallorca. Should this occur, and with Leganés as one of the playoff favorites, it would be the third time that two relegated players have risen the following year. It happened in the 2016-17 campaign with Getafe and Levante; and 2000-01 with Sevilla and Betis. Never before have all three climbed.

Although Espanyol has had the largest budget in the history of the category and with a distance (double) between its salary mass and that of its immediate persecutor, most of the teams that come from First they do not achieve their purpose in the first year. Putting the focus since that 1999, in up to eight campaigns the three descendants of First stayed in Second, as happened as an example in 2018-19 when Deportivo, Las Palmas and Malaga they crashed, and in fact the Coruña are now in Second B and the other two teams are not assured of their permanence in Second.

Despite the fact that in recent years television has prioritized keeping most of its income to the newly descended, the statistic indicates that it is more difficult than ever to ascend on the fast track. In the 31 years that comprise from 1999 to 1968, when a single category of Second A and no subgroups was created, only in seven of those seasons did no ensembles that came from First ascend, even less than in the following 22 years in which there were another change of format, so the demand has increased.