Welcome!

To the ones and ones of you who may accidentally end up looking at this blog, I say welcome! I have started this blog to chronicle my quirky obsession with 2nd division (and beyond) Spanish futbol.

A quick background - In the Fall of 1996, I hopped on a plane and headed to Madrid, Spain to do a semester abroad in college. I had the benefit of living with a Spanish family. Fortunately my Spanish host father was a 'fanatico' of futbol so it was instilled in me from the start. I devoured copies of Spanish sports daily newspapers such as Marca, El Mundo Deportivo and As, mainly so I could help improve my Spanish but also equip myself with the knowledge to speak with the locals. It worked.

One thing that the Spanish sports media does not lack for is hype and drama in their print. This was evidenced by Marca referring to the Spanish 2nd Division as "El Infierno". In English, that bluntly means, "Hell". But why should the level just below the 1st division receive the scarlet letter of "Hell"? Maybe it's because teams who fall from the 1st division into the 2nd division sometimes never recuperate and they never make it back to La Primera. Oviedo, Compostela and Extremadura - I'm looking at you. And it's why teams who do gain that precious promotion from El Infierno into the 1st Division have over-the-top celebrations where the club president can be found drinking cidra/una rioja/jerez/cava etc... in the town's fountains or in its Plaza Mayor.

So here we are, a blog devoted entirely to El Infierno and its bastardly cousins in the lower divisions of Spanish. If anything, hopefully before you skip on to a more interesting blog, you might learn a little about Spanish culture, history, language y por supuesto, futbol.

I'll be back soon with a season preview...