On Sunday, the Spanish team led by former general manager of the Houston Astros Jeff Luhnow was promoted to La Liga. Leganés won the second division title with a 2-0 victory over Elche. Four years after their relegation, and two years after Luhnow’s investment company acquired the tiny club situated in a southern Madrid suburb, they were promoted.
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After 42 games, Leganés had 74 points, two more than Valladolid, the team owned by the legendary former player from Brazil, who had already guaranteed automatic promotion. Sunday’s 2-1 loss to Tenerife prevented Valladolid from winning the second division.
Despite defeating Oviedo 4-3, Eibar—the other team with a shot to finish in the top two and avoid a promotion playoff—finished one point behind Valladolid. Together with Oviedo, Sporting Gijon, and Espanyol, they will participate in the playoffs. There are investors in Luhnow’s Blue Crow Sports Group from the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Canada. Since 2008, a local couple has controlled Leganés. When the team was struggling financially and competing in the third level, they took over.
In 2016, the team was promoted to the first level for the first time. Their greatest accomplishment was in 2017–18 when they defeated Real Madrid en route to the Copa del Rey semifinals. Major League Baseball punished Luhnow and Astros manager AJ Hinch for a full year after it was discovered that the team had used electronics to set up a sign-stealing operation both in the 2017 World Series run by Houston and in the 2018 campaign.
