FC Burgos and the case of underachievement in Northern Spain

Who remembers when FC Burgos went the first 12 games of their 2021/22 campaign without conceding a goal? No?

Perhaps it is easy to forget myriad of Spanish teams that are often overlooked, and potentially there is good enough reasoning as to why. The case of FC Burgos is a strange yet familiar one across Spain: a team formed in the Franco era in a populous city and a large enough fan base that has…, bar a few years in the second division, have very little to show for it. And now they are fighting relegation this season. It begs the question: why do northern Spanish teams act this way. Apart from the obvious caveat of FC Barcelona, a true oligarch of the modern and historical game, northern Spanish teams are far more likely to fail, and badly. Let’s take some examples. The first is perhaps the most obvious one – Real Zaragoza. A city with a population larger than Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester and a stadium with a capacity larger than Leicester’s, Sheffield United’s and Southampton. And yet, no first team football in city for more than a decade and a trophy cabinet filled with a few obligatory Copa Del Rays, mostly from the last decade. Or take Celta Vigo, the largest city in Galicia, founded over 100 years ago. And in 100 years they have three runner up medals for the Copa Del Ray and a discontinued European cup title. Even their cross provincial rivals, Depor, a team with far superior success, can still be seen as underachievers having languished in the regional leagues for the last 4 or so years before a defining return to the Segunda. I mean we’re talking about a team who were the best team in Spain this century. But apart from this incredible run this team has spent years of its existence in financial difficulty and positional uncertainty within the divisions, having spent almost as much time in the second tier than the first. Still unconvinced? Okay how about this. There is not a single southern province, disregarding the colony towns in Morocco, that hasn’t had a La Liga football club in it. Compare that to the north who have 6 . When directing our focus to the south it is clear that far more successful clubs have flourished. Sevilla, perhaps the most dominant team in Europe’s second competition. Betis, with arguably the largest fan base in the whole of Spain, La Liga mainstays and recent Copa Del Ray victors. Take La Liga minnows as well. Andalucian teams such as Granada, Elche, Cadiz or even Almeria have had recent varying stints in the top flight. Even the likes of FC Malaga, despite their remarkable recent collapse, have reached insane heights in the last 10 years, without the necessity of mentioning THAT run). Thus, it begs the question, what is going on in recent Spanish football history that could explain the shift of dominance to the south. Or who can point the finger to why Northern Spanish teams generally have achieved very little within the Spanish game? In truth, the answer comes from the start of the article: FC Barcelona. I belive that the sheer dominace of Barca both hisotriclally and contemprarily has saturated all other momentum from others. It is true that La Liga has been a 3 club league (in terms of title winners) for a long time. Thus, fans in Spain naturally gravitate towards them, sometimes even placing them above their own local team. In the north, particularly in more sepratist regions such as Galicia and Bilbao, this is far less true