Real Oviedo
Real Oviedo is a Spanish football club based in Oviedo, Asturias. Founded on 26 March 1926 as a result of the merger of two clubs who had maintained a large sporting rivalry for years in the city: Real Stadium Club Ovetense and Real Club Deportivo Oviedo. The club plays in the Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish football league system.
The club plays in blue shirts and white shorts in the Estadio Carlos Tartiere, which seats 30,500 spectators, opened on 30 September 2000, and is the largest sports stadium in Asturias. In the all-time league table for the Spanish top division, Oviedo ranks in 18th
place.
Its local rivals are Sporting Gijón on the sea coast to its north, which whom the club contests the Asturian derby. In the regional Asturian language the club is known as Real Uviéu.
History
Founded in 1926 after a merger with Stadium Ovetense and Real Club Deportivo Oviedo. The first one was founded by young people who had studied in England, where the "foot-ball" was already popular. And the second club was founded a few years later by a split in the first. Oviedo first reached La Liga seven years later.Their attacking quartet of Emilín, Galé, Herrerita and Isidro Lángara, as well as Casuco and Ricardo Gallart modernised the game with their pace and running off the ball tied with sharp passing and one-touch football, played in a style 30/40 years before its time, being dubbed Delanteras Eléctricas ; all this was connected with a rigid training and fitness regime started by a former manager of the club, Englishman Fred Pentland. won three consecutive Pichichi trophies from 1933-34 to 1935-36.Lángara won the Pichichi Trophy three years in a row prior to the Spanish Civil War, as Oviedo broke all scoring records. With the outbreak of the conflict, however, the team broke up: Lángara emigrated to South America, Herrerita and Emilín signed with FC Barcelona, Galé with Racing de Santander and Gallart with Racing de Ferrol.
When football in the country resumed in 1939, Oviedo was relegated to the second division, as their pitch was deemed unplayable – Francisco Franco's troops had used the stadium as an ammunition dump. During the following decades, the club bounced back between the first and second levels, the high point being a best-ever third position in 1962–63, while the lowest was the side's first relegation to Segunda División B, in 1978.
With the FIFA World Cup to be held on home soil in 1982, the Carlos Tartiere Stadium was completely renewed, the first match being held with the Chilean national team. In 1984–85 Oviedo won the soon-to-be-defunct Spanish League Cup, after successively defeating UD Salamanca, Bilbao Athletic, CF Lorca Deportiva, CE Sabadell FC and Atlético Madrileño.
In 1988 Oviedo returned to the top division, after ousting RCD Mallorca in the promotion playoffs, and remained in that level for 13 consecutive seasons – in 1990–91 it finished sixth, qualifying for the first time for Europe, and being knocked out in the first round by Genoa C.F.C. of Italy. Oviedo bounced back from that defeat immediately, with a 2–1 win at the Camp Nou over Barcelona.After that successful year, there were more brilliant seasons and others where relegation was narrowly dodged. In a nutshell, the Carbayones had an outstanding run in La Liga during the 1990s with a team which lined up top international players. In 1992 Real Oviedo as well as most Spanish football clubs was forced to become public limited sports company. The initial capital stock for Real Oviedo amounted to €3.6 million.
On 4 October 1995, Real Oviedo played its 1,000th game in La Liga.
In 2000, the new Carlos Tartiere Stadium with 30,500 seats became Real Oviedo’s new ground. It was officially opened on 20 September 2000 with a match between Real Oviedo and Partizan Belgrade, where Real Oviedo lost 0-2 to the Serbian side. Three days before, Real Oviedo and UD Las Palmas had got a 2-2 draw on the first fixture in the 2000–01 season.
After being relegated two consecutive times, Real Oviedo suffered severe economic troubles, which, when coupled with a profound lack of institutional support from the city's government, resulted in the team's inability to pay its players. The club was then forced to drop all the way to the fourth division of Spanish football, for the 2003–04 season; at this point the team nearly folded but eventually recovered and regrouped, returning to level three in the following campaign.
Oviedo lasted two further campaigns before dropping down a level again. In another playoff against a Mallorca team – this time the reserves, the club returned again to the third division, after a penalty shootout; however, its survival remained at risk in the following years, due to continuing financial difficulties.
The financial dire straits continued into the 2012–13 season, when Oviedo called on supporters to buy shares in the club. A few footballers, notably Santi Cazorla, Juan Mata, Michu and Adrián who all started their careers there, offered their financial support in an attempt to save the club from bankruptcy – the club had until 17 November to raise €2 million in order to prevent closure.
On 17 November 2012 Carlos Slim, the second richest man in the world, invested $2.5 million in the club, therefore gaining a controlling stake.
On 31 May 2015, Oviedo confirmed their return to the Spanish Segunda División after a thirteen-year absence with a 2–1 aggregate victory over Cádiz in the 2015 Segunda División B play-offs.
Season to season
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