Real Madrid Have Never Been Too Good At Sharing The Spotlight With Their Neighbours Down In Butarque

Real Madrid have never been too good at sharing the spotlight with their neighbours down in Butarque.
On both occasions that Leganes won promotion in the last five years — they got out of the third division in 2013-14 and the second division in 2015-16 — Real lifted the [/sport/champions_league/index.html Champions League] after beating city rivals [/sport/teampages/atletico-madrid.html Atletico] Madrid.
Ten miles separate Real's Santiago Bernabeu with Leganes' Butarque stadium and while [/sport/teampages/real-madrid.html Los Blancos] fans may have long patronised their neighbours in the south of Madrid, the Pepineros — the cucumbers as they are nicknamed, given their rich agricultural history for producing the vegetable — have more than proven they can hold their own at [/news/spain/index.html Spain]'s top table now. 
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Leganes emerged from potentially bankruptcy to rise from the third division and into LaLiga
Real Madrid overshadowed Leganes' recent promotions by winning the Champions League
'The secret?

The secret is to believe you can do it, work really hard and I think you need a bit of luck in this life, too,' lifelong supporter and now head of communications Victor Marin tells Sportsmail.
It hasn't always been this way, Leganes fans seeing the game's finest talents descend on their house and people asking for the club's secret to success.
There was a time, 10 years ago when, slumped in the third division, the club was on the precipice; there were those who were scared the club could disappear for footballncrickethub.website2.me good.
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It was Parquesur, one of the largest shopping centres in Europe, or the street named after heavy metal stars AC/DC that was synonymous with Leganes for a long time, not the football team.
Club president Ruben Fernandez had left players without wages and a debt of €500,000 had been built up.

Local media DLeganes later reported a number of irregularities with Fernandez's behaviour with finances and simply put, the club was being driven into financial oblivion.
When Atletico Madrid's 'B' team came to play at Butarque in December 2008, Leganes famously kicked the ball out of play from kick off and every member of the team dropped to one knee, refusing to play as a protest for not being paid.

The strike was a watershed moment for the whole club. 
Players took to one knee during a game in December 2008 as a protest against unpaid wages
Felipe Moreno (left) and Victoria Pavon (right) came in weeks later to save the stricken club
There was no sponsor for the shirt or the stadium and for Fernandez, a lack of income streams had the club on the brink before a local family felt compelled to do their duty for the city and save the side.
Husband and wife Felipe Moreno and Victoria Pavon, a wealthy couple from Leganes who made their money in real estate, stepped forward on December 24, 2008, to give supporters an early Christmas present.
The debt of €500,000 was cleared instantly, playing and non-playing staff were paid and with Moreno and Pavon holding a majority 51 per cent stake in the club, in an instant, optimism returned and fears of extinction vanished.
It remains one of the biggest turning points in the club's 91-year history.
The financial gap to those at the Bernabeu was never more obvious than when their more famous neighbours would go on to flaunt their extreme wealth months later with the £80million world record signing of Cristiano Ronaldo.

At the time the Portuguese's transfer fee was more than double the entire value of Leganes.
Nobody on the streets of Leganes would have believed a decade on that the sides would meet as equals in La Liga.
'When I was a child I used to think "We'll never play on La Liga,"' Hugo Ghetto, a lifelong Leganes fan, confessed to Sportsmail.
Optimism returned to the terraces and the side began to connect with the local community
Success soon followed as an away win at CD Mirandes saw them win promotion to LaLiga
'Leganes was a humble team with just 2000 supporters.

Nobody expected the rise to La Liga. In fact, after 10 long seasons in Second division B (Spanish third division), everybody thought that we'll never come back to second division.
'The day we got promoted in Hospitalet (to reach the second division) is considered as the end of a long nightmare for Leganes supporters.' 
A lot has changed in Butarque, the changing rooms have had a total makeover, the number of VIP boxes has increased ten-fold and the teams Leganes take on these days are known across the world.
But plenty has remained the same as when Moreno and Pavon, now the club's president, arrived to pick up the pieces of a club on its knees.
There is a sign every player sees when they walk out of the home changing room on a match day which reads: 'El talento depende de la inspiracion, pero el esfuerzo depende de cada uno'.

Talent depends on inspiration, but effort depends on every one.
And there really is a sense that from the ground staff to the scouts trawling through footage of matches in China and South Africa 'in search of the next Messi,' effort and spirit is what got them to the top tier, and effort is the minimum they can give to try and stay there.
Take Marin, he started volunteering in the third division days to help grow the club's presence online and in the local community where he would see most people walking round in Real Madrid and Barcelona shirts.
There were big celebrations after the match as the club reached the top flight for the first time
Players held up one finger to represent the first division as the small club defied the odds
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatLHS sport" data-version="2" id="mol-66b2ffb0-fa2d-11e9-9b55-2b8d4ea6fd83" website REPORT: Leganes' remarkable rise from third division to LaLiga