The risks of Espanyol's formula for survival in the elite

BarcelonaNené, Milosevic, Domoraud, Juanfran Torres, Coutinho, Ben Sahar, Lucas Vázquez, Asensio, Osvaldo, Kumbulla or Carlos Romero. The list of loan players who have left their mark on Espanyol is very long. The same goes for players on loan who have passed through the Catalan team with more shame than glory. This is the case of Finnan, Arlauskis, Alfa Semedo, Lecomte, or, more recently, Ramon Ramos, Ünüvar or Cheddira. Also that of Samuel Eto'o, loaned by Real Madrid in January 1999; he was 17 years old and only played 33 minutes for the white and blue in the Copa del Rey and a short while in the Copa Catalunya.

Since the end of the last century, the formula of incorporating players on loan has been a trend at the periquito club. In fact, it has intensified in recent times: Espanyol has accumulated 16 loan deals in the last three seasons. Fran Garagarza, when Chen Yansheng closed the tap, managed to sign nine loaned players in a single transfer market. And Monchi has already brought in on loan Unai Núñez, Gabriel Moscardo, Hartman, and the center-back Vanja Drkusic, who was made official this Friday. Everything suggests that by the end of the month, he will still make some more operations of this type. This year, the white-and-blues have only paid a transfer fee for Álex Calatrava.

Why so many loan deals?

It is not an isolated case, that of Espanyol, but a trend that is replicated in most of the First and Second division clubs. “Since Tebas tightened economic control, the famous fair play, many more loan deals are made than before because they do not have as great an impact on the salary limit as a purchase. In Spain, very few teams have the resources to sign players outright. If you can't buy an apartment, you rent it, right? And if you can't afford a car, you lease it. Well, this is the same thing,” says Ángel Gómez, former Periquito sporting director.

His friend Txema Indias, who was at the head of Leganés' technical secretariat for ten years, confirms this: “More than an option, loan deals are an obligation. If a team in the mid-to-lower part of the First division like Leganés has to make twelve signings, it is impossible for them to pay a transfer fee for all of them. Little by little, if you stabilize in the League, which is key, and you make money from some sales, you can go on buying: one year En-Nesyri, another Braithwaite... But you have to be very clear about it, because if you sign a player for four or five years, between salary and transfer fee, it can mortgage your salary limit a lot. We mainly resorted to loan deals. And in fact, often the other club paid a percentage of the player's salary because, otherwise, we couldn't afford it either.”

The risks involved

“If you have many loans, year after year you are forced to make a new squad. And, of course, it is a danger to sign 13 or 14 new players every summer. Furthermore, you don't set the pace, the market does. And this means you don't close the squad until the end of August, doing pre-season without the bulk of the team and with the risk of starting the league on the wrong foot,” warns the former sports director of Leganés. “25% or 30% of operations are done in the last fifteen days of the market,” estimates Gómez, directly responsible for the loan, with an option to buy, of Diego Reyes to Espanyol: “The market has evolved a lot. Before, they were simple loans, now they are for two years – in the case of Carlos Romero – or they already include an option to buy and even a buy-back option. I remember we bought Lucas Vázquez and four days later Madrid bought him back from us.”

“Above all, they work on objectives. We signed Juan Cruz because we were promoted to the League and he had played a specific number of games,” explains Indias, a key figure in the career of Madrid's most expensive signing, Yan Diomande. “Another of the drawbacks is that if there is no buy-out option at all, you are really working and training a player for another team. And you run the risk that, since the footballer knows he will return to his home club, it will affect his performance. But it really depends on the person, of course,” says Gómez.

“It is evident that there is a risk of disconnection, but this happens with loans and with non-loans. Look at Garnacho, Chelsea had to sell him at a loss. You can look at it from the other side: the loaned footballer has to take advantage of the year to take a leap forward,” comments former player Jofre Mateu, who played for Espanyol with Juanfran Torres, loaned by Madrid. “His case was similar to mine, when Barça sent me to Mallorca for a year. We were very young, we came from a great club and for us it was a challenge. If you really want to dedicate yourself to football, you have to overcome the test,” he adds.

Limit on loans

“Affiliated teams are a bubble, and when you go outside, you touch down. You see people working their fingers to the bone to pay their mortgage and feed their family. It's a reality shock,” reveals Àngel Morales, who in 1998 left Espanyol B to do his military service at Alavés and Hércules. It went so well that he returned to the first white-and-blue team, with which he ended up playing almost 150 games. His case is reminiscent of Moisés Hurtado, Pol Lozano, Jofre Carreras, Javi Hernández, Rafel Bauzà, and Roger Hinojo. These last three, loaned out last season to the Second Division, will try to convince Manolo González to give them minutes in the First Division.

Espanyol has historically stood out for its youth academy and has used loans to polish many of its young talents. Even Raúl Tamudo, the club's all-time top scorer in the League, toughened up in Vitoria and Lleida. This method, used by the great academies in Spain, has been affected by FIFA's new regulation limiting the number of loans: clubs can only loan out twelve players – six to national teams and six to international teams, with a maximum of three loans to the same club.

This is the main reason why Espanyol decided to break its affiliation with Vilassar, which since last year served as Espanyol C. “I am convinced that it has been stipulated this way to prevent giants like Manchester City from buying the 100 best young players in the world and loaning them out. It would be a monopoly,” says Txema Indias about another of the great risks of loans, the formula used by the majority of La Liga clubs to survive in the elite.