"There was once a little boat!".

Since the promotion playoff in 2008, Navalcarnero's great victories have been celebrated with a nursery rhyme.

"There was once a little boat!".

That year he crossed paths with Granada Atlético, a club that symbolized an era.

"They were the years of the real estate boom, when the builders got to be soccer presidents. They had a budget of one million euros to go up to 2º B", says the 'culprit' of this tradition,

Toni García Ferná

ndez

Then a player and now the team's sports director, Toni was asked by his radio colleagues how he felt after taking down a team on penalties with such a checkbook.

And Toni, who liked himself in front of the bus, said that the Navalcarnero was a small boat next to ocean liners like that Granada Atlético.

That scramble by a group of businessmen multiplied by five the budget that Madrid people handle today, but it disappeared a year after losing in that promotion playoff.

And the Naval ... well, "that little boat, that little boat sailed". He sailed and today plays the round of 16 of the Copa del Rey against Granada CF, the club that that brick project wanted to overshadow.

For your technician,

Luis Ayllon

, and to

Diego Martinez

It will be like going back to class: that same 2008 they were classmates in Level III of the coaching school of the Federation of Castilla-La Mancha.

Then they shared group work and today they see each other for the first time on the benches.

The Madrilenians, further than they had ever reached in the tournament.

The Andalusians, trying to repeat the feat of last year, when they stayed one goal from the final.

Tractors against Filomena

With less than a week to face Eibar, the storm left more than half a meter of snow on Mariano González.

"I approached the second coach and the field assistant and we were very scared. We thought that he would not be able to play or joke", recalls García Fernández.

But the social fabric of the club was mobilized for days so that the team could receive a First at home.

Hands, shovels, tractors ... Yes, tractors too. "It helped us a lot that this town lives a lot from the countryside, because people knew how these tasks had to be done. Building streets, putting tractors in ... And players, management and fans shoveling to remove the snow ", explains the sports director.

"It was a conspiracy between the people and the club. I think we started to win the game against Eibar on Tuesday by clearing snow." Navalcarnero came back with goals from the captain,

Manu Jaimez

, who combines football with his work as a Thermomix salesperson, and

Juan Esnáider

, who had already scored the decisive goal in the previous round against Badajoz.

He comes from caste - and he is not the only one.

His brother Facundo also plays for the Naval.

The players were still celebrating their victory against Eibar in the dressing room when they heard a knock on the door.

And on the other side appeared José Luis Mendilibar. "He just wanted to congratulate us on the way we had competed and that we had deserved the victory. Eibar is a humble team that has been in our skin, that has been and is small, and above all I think they saw us in the mirror ", Garcia Fernández reasons.

"That is being a great team, when you have humility and you accept that a lower category team has beaten you. These are things that enhance football and the philosophy of a great coach like Mendilibar."

Less capacity for the VAR

In this round, all matches will have the VAR available.

And something so common in top-level football can be a bit of a hassle in smaller stadiums.

It has happened to Navalcarnero, which will have to further reduce its capacity for tonight to make room for technology.

"The height we have on the field is not the most ideal. You have to raise the cameras so that everything looks good, so we will have to remove about 25 or 50 more seats."

With a capacity that the pandemic restrictions have left at just over 300, it is the other side of this Copa del Rey, that of small teams that will have to live their feats in half-empty stadiums.

It is not just the money that is lost at the box office, but the shortness of breath from the stands.

"It is very sad, because I would like to see the field full and that people could see their team in the second round and against a First team. At least the partners will be able to. They deserve it because they are behaving phenomenally with us" , explains the Navalcarnero sports director. In the absence of full stands, he says, affection is shown by approaching training on Saturdays to peek from the outside, because not even that leaves the pandemic, or by inviting breakfast when they see them in town.

Encouraging that little boat that long ago learned to sail.

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