Copa del Rey brings Sporting de Alcázar back into the spotlight against Málaga

The Copa returns to the town that challenged Maradona, left Joaquín Caparrós with lasting memories and was the birthplace of an Athletic legend. Sporting de Alcázar host Málaga, a top-flight side, 34 years after Gimnástico’s Copa tie against Bilardo’s Sevilla, where the “Diez” played.

The cup match is scheduled for Tuesday, 27 October, at 21:00 at the Manuel Delgado Meco stadium. It takes football in Alcázar back to the national stage, which it had not reached for decades. For a town of 30,000 people, the Copa del Rey remains part of the sporting memory, almost 34 years after the episode that left its mark.

On 30 December 1992, Gimnástico travelled to Sevilla for the second leg. Sevilla won 5-0 and completed a 7-0 aggregate victory. But the score was almost a footnote beside what the players experienced: in Alcázar, a photograph preserves the moment a group of Gimnástico players surrounded Diego Armando Maradona at the Sánchez-Pizjuán.

Football in Alcázar has a longer history. Over time, clubs and sporting associations emerged, and Gimnástico became one of the city’s leading sporting institutions. Caparrós was among the figures at the beginning of that generation, before becoming the coach he would later be. In the 1991-92 season, he joined Gimnástico as coach while also overseeing and coordinating the future Escuela Deportiva Municipal.

Caparrós remembers that period fondly. “It was a very pleasant experience, professionally and personally. As well as coaching Gimnástico, I think we did good work at the football school with the Patronato. The president also knew exactly what he wanted,” he said. He also praised the squad as “a very good and very attractive team”, bringing together players from outside the town and, for the most part, from Alcázar.

That season, Gimnástico reached a promotion play-off phase for Segunda B for the first time, but did not go up, Marca reports. The project aimed to raise the standard of football in Alcázar. Caparrós helped lay its foundations, but left before the club’s great cup night. Esteban Castellanos, his former assistant, took over and was in charge when Gimnástico later faced Sevilla. The earlier work remained in the club’s structure and in a generation of players beginning to believe Alcázar could compete at a higher level.