"We have discovered that existing is more important than winning"

BarcelonaWith more than 450,000 inhabitants, Lleida will not have any football team playing in the top four categories of football next season. Smaller towns enjoy professional football and Lleida, no. Atlètic Lleida, the recently created club that doesn't quite win over fans, will hardly avoid relegation to Tercera RFEF. With four matchdays remaining, it is eight points off the relegation zone. And Lleida CF, the team that defends the long football tradition of the former Unió Esportiva Lleida, is precisely at the bottom of Tercera RFEF. Surely, it will also go down. In a city where basketball thrives, football suffers. But in the stands of Tercera RFEF grounds, at the darkest moment, many fans have discovered many things. They have found beauty, despite the pain.

This Friday, the presidential box of Camp d'Esports will be filled to capacity with nearly 200 people who have already confirmed their attendance at the presentation of the book 'Banderes blaves' (Pagès Editors) by journalist Juanjo Lecumberri. The event will be hosted by journalist Oriol Jové, author of the prologue, and will consist of a conversation between the author and historian Ramon Usall, in charge of the epilogue; Òscar Sarramia, illustrator of the cover, and Marc Torres, club representative. All profits from the book, by the way, the author will donate to the club, as Lleida CF is going through a complicated economic period. "Many people have understood that the important thing in football is to exist, rather than to win. We have to exist and have an identity. And then see how we can build. If we go down even further, but we guarantee the future of the entity, we won't be sad. It will be a new beginning if we manage to clean up the finances," explains the journalist.

In recent decades, debts have suffocated Lleida, leading to economic bankruptcies, a rebranding, name changes, and owner shuffles. The team that reached the top division thirty years ago now lives far from professional football after years of crisis that still endanger the entity's survival. In the summer of 2025, it seemed the team would disappear just as some businessmen boosted the Atlètic Lleida project, with the City Council's help, but without social support. With empty stands, Atlètic Lleida will be relegated. And Lleida CF, with more people, will too. The idea of merging the two entities, however, appeals to few. "Absolutely not," says Lecumberri.

"The key is for a new owner to arrive and be able to pay off the debts. People are nervous because this new buyer isn't showing up," explains Lecumberri. The idea for the book, in fact, was born when the team was heading for hell in 2025. "This season, Lleida is forced to play in Tercera RFEF. A team that not so long ago was fighting to be in Segunda, debuted on the first matchday at the Can Vidalet field. It's a team from Esplugues that does things very well, but for Lleida's fans, going from playing in big stadiums to playing here was tough. But the stands filled with people with blue flags and scarves. And I thought something had to be done," he says. When a team is going through its worst, that's when you see if the fanbase is loyal. And Lleida has fans who never give up and have continued to accompany the team despite the bad results, as the entity functions with members acting as volunteers and good players haven't been signed. Lleida is fighting to survive.

Lecumberri explains how difficult it has been to follow Lleida these years with 22 chapters, uniting the club's history with his life, to "have a bigger picture of what Lleida means to people". During this year he has interviewed workers, fans and people from the world of football to be able to trace a path that unites memories with the present. To explain how people's lives change, with the changes, joys and disappointments, both inside and outside of football. Because people who love a club always keep it in mind even when other things happen around them. "When 15M happened, for example, I am clear that it was the last match of Unión Deportiva Lleida with this name, at L'Hospitalet stadium," explains the journalist, now living in Barcelona for work.

Following Lleida in Australia

In fact, like many people from Lleida, Lecumberri has made his way far from his city. "For many years I haven't lived in Lleida, but the club has always been a link to my roots," says a man who, with that surname, was destined to be a Lleida fan. "It's not a very common surname in Lleida, so everyone immediately knows who my father was," he says, referring to Juan José Lecumberri, a Navarrese player trained at Osasuna who, in the early 80s, signed for Lleida. And he stayed so long that "he is the third player with the most appearances in the club's history, surpassed only by Rubio and Palau." "People remember his era with affection, with Jordi Gonzalvo on the bench, the current anthem... My father met my mother, who is from Lleida, and stayed. Now he's a professor and always goes to the stadium. We've always gone to the stadium, to the north goal," says the son.

"I claim this shared ritual of going to the stadium, to keep it alive. I studied in 2017 in Madrid and there it was easier for me to go see Osasuna, the team we also follow by family tradition, like Lleida. I returned home and worked at SER right in the year with Idiakez on the bench, when we were one step away from being promoted to Second Division, losing on penalties against Sevilla's reserve team. But then I went to live in Australia, where I worked as a football coach. And following the club was a way of feeling at home," says a journalist whose first family memory is of him playing a vinyl record with the club's anthem over and over again at his grandparents' house. "I try to give a voice to a generation, to a way of doing things in which perhaps fans of other Catalan clubs can feel reflected," assures the author, who believes that fans of other "suffering" Catalan clubs can also enjoy the book, as it fundamentally talks about universal ideas like the feeling of being part of a community.