Founded in 1900, Real Espanyol Barcelona has a long history and a rich cultural heritage. Every week, follow in the footsteps of the Spaniard Chronicles series and slowly unfold the club's centuries and relive this dusty history.
2010-2020 Starlight enters the ownership
In the 2008/2009 season, club legend Mauricio Pochettino was appointed as the team's interim manager and led the team to relegation. At the end of the season, the club chose to renew his contract for three years, and Pochettino officially became the club's manager.
Pochettino, who conducts the game
Pochettino immediately showed his talent in coaching after the official signing, although the team's finances were not rich at the time, pochettino still led the team to play well in this situation. Fast forward to the 2012/2013 season, after playing 14 La Liga games, the club finished at the end of the table, the club fired Pochettino early on the grounds of poor performance, Mexican Javier Aguirre took office, and after the new manager took office, the team immediately stopped the decline and successfully relegated at the end of the season.
Officially renamed RCD Stadium
In 2010, the club's newly inaugurated new home, Corneia El Prat Stadium, won the Stadium Business Award 2010 by Guinness. In 2016, the cornea El Prat stadium, which had just finished commercial naming, was officially renamed r.c.d.e stadium, and the name of the stadium with the initials of the club has remained until today.
On November 2, 2015, Xinghui Interactive Entertainment Co., Ltd. (a share code: 300043) from China announced that it would inject more than 60 million euros to control the club, which is the first Chinese company to control the football clubs of europe's top five leagues.
Second generation parrot mascots perico and perica
On September 24, 2017, the club announced through the official website that the first generation parrot mascot perico, which had been "in service" for many years, was officially retired, and the second generation parrot mascot perico and its female companion perica were officially launched, continuing to bring joy to fans. After Perico and Perica went online, whenever the club had a home game, they would come to the stadium to walk and jump to enliven the atmosphere. In addition, Perico and Perica often participate in the pre-match ceremonies of the team's home games and take photos with the starters.
Wu Lei officially joined the team
On January 28, 2019, Wu Lei, a Chinese football player and the top scorer of the Chinese Super League, officially transferred to join the team, and Wu Lei's joining made up for the gap between Chinese players in the five major leagues in Europe. Before Wu Lei joined, the club management made a long in-depth investigation of him, for the club, Wu Lei is a very powerful player, his arrival is one of the most important sports events of the club in recent years.
On 3 February 2019, Wu Lei made his debut for the chinese striker in his away draw with Villarreal, with more than 40 million Chinese fans watching the Chinese striker's La Liga debut in front of the TV, which greatly expanded the club's influence in the Chinese market. On 18 May of the same year, in the final match of the 2018/2019 La Liga season, the team won the last place in the Europa League with a 2-0 victory at home to Real Sociedad with goals from Wu Lei and Rosales. This not only created the team's best ranking in La Liga in 12 years (7th), but also allowed the team to return to Europe after a gap of 12 years.
The moment Wu Lei broke through the Barca goal
In the 2019/2020 Europa League, the team set a record of 26 consecutive unbeaten games in Europe, and was eventually eliminated in the round of 32 with a two-legged defeat to Wolves from England. On 5 January 2020, the team took on the same city rivals Barcelona at home. In the 73rd minute of the game, Wu Lei came off the bench, and in the 88th minute, Wu Lei successfully countered the offside and took the ball to push the far corner to break the goal. The goal helped the team draw 2-2 at home to Barcelona, and Wu Lei personally became the first Chinese player in history to score a Barca goal!
To be continued...