“Of all the championships I’ve been involved in, this probably tied for the most satisfying,” says Leganes president Jeff Luhnow of last season’s Spanish second division title.
One of Luhnow’s previous championships was the Houston Astros’ first baseball World Series victory in 2017, when he was the MLB team’s general manager. Just over two years later he was fired by the Astros when it was discovered the team had consistently been stealing the signs of opposition pitchers.
Luhnow spoke about that with The Athletic in July 2022, just after his Blue Crow investment group bought Segunda Division side Leganes for €39million (£33.6m; $42.6m at current rates), denying direct knowledge of cheating during his time with the Astros.
Asked now if he felt any vindication after Leganes achieved promotion to La Liga, which was hugely celebrated in the city just south of Madrid, the Mexican American says his focus is on his adventure in Spanish football.
#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/TRWPGSnPGX
— Jeff Luhnow (@jluhnow) June 3, 2024
“It was huge, given how quickly it happened, how it really was not expected this year, and given the enormity of the reward of going up to La Liga and playing some of the best teams in the world,” Luhnow says.
“There was relief involved, having been in first place for so long during the season. But it was more happiness than anything else.”
On joining the Astros, Luhnow clashed with many existing staff members, especially old-school scouts and coaches who did not enjoy a brash outsider telling them how to do their jobs.
There were fears of something similar at Leganes when Blue Crow bought the club in June 2022, according to the club’s long-serving sporting director Txema Indias.
“We were all unsure about what might happen,” Indias says. “Foreign investors often bring their own people and make a radical change. Jeff and his people brought their way of working, their methods — but they didn’t come in like a rampaging elephant. They watched how everyone worked, who was useful, who was not. Big data helps in football, but maybe not as much as in baseball.”
Indias kept his job as sporting director, with his record of having built the squad that got Leganes promoted to La Liga in 2016 counting in his favour. Former player Martin Ortega remained as general director and Jorge Broto as academy director. There was still plenty of change, though — 15 players left the club in the summer of 2022 while 12 signings arrived, all loans and free transfers.
Fans did not appreciate such frugality as the team spent most of the season battling relegation. Blue Crow-hire Imanol Idiakez was fired as manager in April, with youth coach Carlos Martinez taking over and saving the club from a disastrous drop to the semi-pro third tier.
Last summer, La Liga rules cut Leganes’ allowed budget to €10.2million, less than half of what fellow Segunda Division side Elche were allowed to spend. That meant exits were required for higher earners, including Nigeria international Kenneth Omeruo. Ten out of 11 new signings were loans and free transfers, without top-level experience but with hunger to get there.
Leganes head coach Borja Jimenez (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
“The first season with the new owners, there was not so much stability on the sporting side,” says long-serving club captain Sergio Gonzalez, 32. “The results were very inconsistent, with good and bad moments. More changes were made, bringing in players with ambition, motivation to improve along with the club. That made us stronger.”
A key hire in summer 2023 was coach Borja Jimenez, then just 38, whose previous job was an unsuccessful attempt to get Deportivo La Coruna promoted from the third tier.
“The hiring process was very different, with lots of interviews with Jeff, Txema and others from Blue Crow,” Jimenez says. “As I got to know them, my candidacy got stronger. You have an idea of what they want to hear from you, so you prepare.”
Jimenez quickly assembled an organised team based on a water-tight defence. They went first in the Segunda standings in mid-September and then, after a brief slip, went top again on matchday 12. They were not budged from there for the remainder of the season.
“Our analysis of Segunda was that teams who conceded few goals tended to have success,” Jimenez says. “With the same defence as the previous season, we reduced the number of goals conceded by 40 per cent.”
On the penultimate weekend, Leganes were seconds away from clinching promotion, only to concede a 96th-minute penalty at Racing Ferrol. That meant they had to beat Elche on the final day at their home Butarque stadium to go up.
Step forward Miguel de la Fuente, a striker who had joined on loan from Alaves after scoring just four goals in 33 Segunda games. Despite that, Indias believed in a player he knew well, and De la Fuente’s 13th goal of the 2023-24 season opened the scoring in the 2-0 victory that clinched the Segunda title.
“Miguel was not coming off a good year in Vitoria, but he knew Leganes, and I knew him personally,” says Indias. “And he helped us get promoted.”
Blue Crow was formed in 2021 by Luhnow and co-founder Arvind Narayan. Some of its investors are Astros shareholders, including the company’s chairman Ben Guill, who is also a part-owner of MLS side Houston Dynamo.
In his 2022 interview, Luhnow told The Athletic that he had learned from his Astros experience, and that “winning has to be done following the rules”. He was also clear that the search for a competitive edge which had brought success in baseball (until he was fired) could be translated into football.
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“We’ve studied successful teams — Brentford, Ajax, Bournemouth, Wrexham — to see if they are relevant to us,” Luhnow says now. “Arvind and I spent a day with (technical director) Julian Ward at Liverpool. At RB Salzburg, Christoph Freund (now Bayern Munich’s sporting director) showed us the entire operation — technology, player analysis, recruitment strategy. We’ve had meetings with Philadelphia Union and Orlando of MLS. Chivas is a great example in Mexico.”
Luhnow (left) pictured at Leganes’ home ground in April (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
Blue Crow has also seen plenty of staff turnover. Former MLS player Cole Grossman lasted less than a year as director of sporting intelligence and strategy. Sara Rudd and Ravi Ramineni, who previously ran the analytics departments at Premier League team Arsenal and MLS’s Seattle Sounders, also left within twelve months.
The executive team now includes Hugo Blanco, previously of La Liga and Espanyol, and Jose Fernandez, a former head of sports science at the Astros. Blue Crow’s vice president of global scouting is Jeff Vetere, formerly a scout at Real Madrid, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. Rob Mastrodomenico, formerly at Brentford, now runs Blue Crow’s analytics team of four full-time staff.
Blue Crow’s network of clubs and connections has also grown. Their first acquisition was Mexican second-tier club Cancun FC in January 2022. Through a partnership with Cameroon-based Rainbow Sports, they started to work with Czech second-division side MFK Vyskov and Dubai-based Elite Falcons FC. Both clubs were taken over completely by Luhnow’s company in late 2023.
The long-term plan is for players to move between Blue Crow’s clubs, gaining experience at different levels to prepare them for playing for Leganes in La Liga. Youngsters scouted in Africa get six to 12 months of physical, tactical and language training in Dubai. “When that player comes to Leganes’ under-18s, and maybe later to Cancun, we have all the information we need to help them be as good as they can,” Luhnow says.
Blue Crow have developed an IT system, ‘Nest’, for scouting, squad building and player development. Coaches can access data for all players, of all ages, across its club network. Players get a detailed report sent to their phones after every game or training session.
“Everything is measured here,” says defender Gonzalez. “On a physical level: metres covered, maximum speed, sprints made. On a football level: short passes, long passes, aerial duels, defensive duels, attacking duels. If it can be measured, it can be improved.”
Coach Jimenez says he is happy to use anything to help him do his job better but intuition and experience remain vital to picking the XI each week.
“If football was just about numbers, there would be no need for a coach,” he says. “You must know how to interpret them, value them. There are things about the game that cannot be counted — day-to-day experiences, personal relationships.”
Leganes received €7million of TV money in Segunda last year. This season, they will get around €45m in La Liga — but the historically modest club, with its 12,000-capacity Butarque Stadium, will still be battling against the odds.
“We’ll have the lowest payroll in La Liga, it won’t even be close,” Luhnow says. “To survive, we must be really smart with every new acquisition. If we spend €1million on a player, he has to produce €2m or €3m worth of value. That’s hard to do, hard to forecast.”
🙌🏻 GRACIAS POR VUESTRO APOYO EN UN AÑO INCREÍBLE. NOS VEMOS EN PRIMERA DIVISIÓN PEPINEROS!!!! pic.twitter.com/rPlbp7E5kz
— C.D. Leganés (@CDLeganes) June 3, 2024
An early blow this summer was goalkeeper Diego Conde, who conceded just 26 goals in 40 games last season, joining Villarreal for €4million. Conde’s replacement is Juan Soriano, a free signing from Segunda’s Tenefire who spent a season on loan with Leganes in La Liga five years ago. French right-back Valentin Rosier has joined from Turkish club Besiktas and Luhnow suggests more international signings are likely.
“Our biggest assets are that we are playing in La Liga, the second-biggest league in the world, against some of the most important teams in the world,” he says. “And we’re in Madrid (the metropolitan area). That combination is powerful. Players want to be here.”
Leganes players celebrate a crucial victory over Sporting Gijon in May (Diego Souto/Getty Images)
Among the arrivals is playmaker Roberto Lopez, 24, who has played for Real Sociedad in La Liga. Loan moves for emerging stars at bigger clubs who want top-flight experience are also likely. The squad will not be finalised until late in the transfer window.
“At Leganes, we always need patience,” says Indias. “We have to remain clear about who we are, and not waste time looking at markets that are not ours.”
Everyone at Leganes, on and off the pitch, will have to over-achieve again to stay in La Liga.
“Combining the owners’ professionalism with the club’s family nature is very positive,” says Gonzalez. “We’re always thinking of how we can improve. We know what works here, and we’ll keep going like this.”
Blue Crow plans to add new clubs to its portfolio, with a Leganes side established in La Liga as the apex of the pyramid, Luhnow says.
“In five years, Blue Crow should have eight clubs, each run locally,” he says.
“Each investment requires figuring out the local environment and market. None of our four clubs have debt, we invest our own capital directly, and fund losses with our money. We’re looking at lower first-division or upper second-division teams in Portugal and Denmark, and a Czech first-division club. Later, I’d like to have some footprint in the UK, either a partner club, or our own UK club.”
(Top photo: Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
