Jeff Luhnow’s Next Chapter: Soccer – Part 2

How CrawfishBoxes gave me the opportunity of a lifetime

I have written a few articles on on Jeff Luhnow’s “Next Chapter”, from his move to soccer, acquisition of teams, and on my take on his legacy in baseball. This article is a follow up with a goal of thanking CrawfishBoxes as it gave me the opportunity to meet Jeff Luhnow and have the most memorable sporting experience of my life.

I remember being a little kid standing in line and getting to “meet” Craig Biggio. As a little leaguer playing 2B, Biggio was a near god tier hero in my mind. I remember him saying something along the lines of “You’ll be a great second baseman in the bigs one day.”, a terrible lie, as while my love for the sport never died, it quickly became apparent that my on field abilities didn’t match that love.

It’s the reason I became an Astros fan despite growing up in a purely Yankee dominated territory, even during the Yankees heyday. The Astros always felt like the underdog especially in the 90’s. The team was always great, but just fell short. I fell in love with the game and lived and died on every pitch, getting to experience the crazy highs and lows and unforgettable moments such as Burke’s 18^th inning HR. I remember writing on the old Astros forums then joining TCB and loving to have found a place to share the love for the team, and those who were riding the same highs and lows of those magical moments.

TCB had a massive shake-up, and when Bill took over to steady the ship. I started writing fan articles and Bill encouraged me to write more. I started writing in what I’d call the start of the Luhnow era.

I’m sure almost everyone here is familiar, but the Astros weren’t the dynasty they are today, they were the laughing stock of the league. Jim Crane bought the team in 2011, after a year that they would go 56-106. Luhnow’s hiring was announced December 8^th, 2011.

When Luhnow took over, overnight the team had a different identity. We were still the butt of every MLB joke, with the team looking to turn over the roster to reduce payroll, rebuild the farm, and essentially build an entire organization. It became immediately evident that repeating 100 losses was likely. But it didn’t matter. While some immediately screamed that Crane was just cheap and our organization was heading down the drain, others saw the bigger plan, “The Process”.

Over the next few years, I wrote hundreds of articles, becoming an editor here, learning an incredible amount about analytics, the new wave of baseball that was in front of us. While a ton of what we saw has become household knowledge since, we had the chance to experience it when people thought they were absurd notions. Today, it’s common to hear broadcasters cite Spin Rates, Exit Velocities, Launch Angles, Shifts, or advanced statistics like FIP, SIERA, BABIP, etc. but as an Astros fan, we were the pioneers when most of the concepts were scoffed at.

From draft strategies scoring multiple 1^st round picks (Correa/McCullers), to winning trades (Alvarez for Fields), to application of analytics, to magical turnarounds of journeyman pitchers (McHugh, Morton, Harris, etc), to new technologies (edgertronic, raspodo, etc), pitching strategies (Effective Velocity, Spin, tunneling, etc). It always felt like the Astros were playing chess while every other team was playing checkers.

Looking back, I saw memorable quotes from a sister site asking if Luhnow was a mad genius, or just mad, recommending he take notes from Billy Beane on how to approach a baseball revolution.

I don’t mean to take away anything from Billy Beane, but Moneyball’s “revolution” truly pales in comparison to the revolution caused by Jeff Luhnow and the Astros. Of course, the credit does not simply go to a single person in building the Astros dynasty, and I’m personally still hopeful Strom’s legacy will be written to remember some of this revolution. Unfortunately, in baseball, that’s not how the ending of Jeff Luhnow’s story will be written.

For me, while I wasn’t the biggest Futbol (Soccer) fan growing up, the idea of seeing a similar cutting-edge revolution in another sport was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

And in Jeff Luhnow style, he did not disappoint.

The first team acquired was Cancun FC. While Mexican Futbol has a freeze on promotion/relegation currently, Cancun was crowned Liga Expansion MX Champions in May.

Blue Crow Sports does own a few other teams including MFK Vyskov (Czech) and Elite Falcons (Dubai), but the one I want to focus on for this article is CD Leganes (Spain).

CD Leganes

As Astros fans will likely expect, CD Leganes saw a massive turn around from last place to fighting for the championship.

Half way through the season last year, I saw that Leganes’ final game of the year was at home, and after watching the games online, I decided to plan a trip to Spain to go see it. Little did I know at the time, how important of a game it would be, and how this trip became one of the greatest of my life.

For those who aren’t familiar with Leganes, it’s a part of the Madrid metropolitan area, so getting there is extremely easy and allowed me the opportunity to explore Madrid the day before the game, and the magical city of Toledo later in the week.

As the season came closer to the end, it became clear that not only would CD Leganes be vying for Promotion and the Championship, but the last game could be important.

When I went to book the Airbnb, I wasn’t sure if there were areas in Leganes I should avoid for safety reasons. (There isn’t, it’s a very safe and charming city) I remembered that the Luhnow family had reached out after my Legacy of Luhnow article, so I sent them a note apologizing for bothering and asking if there were any areas they’d recommend staying in or avoiding for the final game.

The Luhnows reached out and let me know that Leganes as a city was safe, and how excited that they were that I would be coming out for the game. Gina said that Jeff and the family would love to meet me while I was there.

As if that was not enough, the final match was far more important than I could have thought. Despite maintaining first place nearly all year, Leganes dropped into a danger zone the second to last week. And with a tightly clustered standings in points, there were a lot of outcomes that could play out.

It was game day and we felt the city’s nervous energy as we had drinks and watched the streets fill with different generations of Leganes fans. Then, the unthinkable happened. I received an email from Stubhub, “We apologise, but unfortunately, your seller is not able to provide the tickets that you originally purchased.”

I’m freaking out, I bought the tickets months ago, the game is long since sold out. I literally flew to Spain for this game. I sent a note to Jeff, letting him know that I unfortunately didn’t think I would be able to meet him at the game as my tickets just got canceled. “Come to the stadium, we will sort it out”. Jeff said. Saving the day and the entire trip, Jeff had put tickets in my name.

On the last game of the season, Leganes faced off against Elche. If they win, they secure promotion. If they win AND Valladolid loses, they also win the championship. I don’t have a great analogy for a baseball comparison, but essentially imagine the top minor league team gets “promoted” into the majors. If they lose, they could stay a minor league team, if they win they move to the majors. It has a massive impact not only on the team, but the city itself. You can imagine the atmosphere in the stadium. Best of all, Valladolid’s game is going on at the same time.

Just under 10 minutes into the game, Leganes’ Miguel De La Fuente takes a beautiful shot that hits the top corner of the net. The stadium erupts. You can feel the ground shaking and the vibrations of the cheering in your chest. 1-0 doesn’t ensure victory, but the buzz and anticipation began to build. Just before the half a great build up and pass to Juan Cruz resulted in Leganes going up 2-0. If they could just hold on, promotion was a lock. You could feel the joy of what this could mean for the city of Leganes in the stadium.

There was this moment, the stadium filled with the normal roar of a championship match, suddenly, went silent. Moments of eerie silence hit the stadium and then cheers began erupting throughout. I looked down at my phone, a goal in Valladolid’s game. Tenerife goes ahead 1-0 in the 52’ minute, suddenly, what seemed highly unlikely was unfolding in front of us. Then at minute 68’, another goal, Tenerife is up 2-0.

Fit for the storybook ending, Leganes not only won and secured their promotion, but were crowned champions of La Liga 2.

You can watch the LaLiga Hypermotion full game recap on Youtube at: https://youtu.be/vNO4JQyDpCc?feature=shared

I’ve personally never felt a city come more alive with over 100,000 people taking to the streets celebrating the victory. Stores ran out of beers but people shared their supplies. Fans chanted and cheered, every corner of the city filled with Leganes shirts, flags, scarves all gathering to celebrate the team’s victory.

The next day, I had a chance to meet Jeff. Jeff and his son Henry took time to give us a personal tour of the stadium and walked us through the history of the club and it’s importance to the city.

As I sat in Jeff Luhnow’s office, I paused taking in the moment, a world away from where it all started. Hours after his team winning one of the largest games of his career, I had a chance to see Jeff and his son in his office, and just enjoy the conversation. He let me go enjoy the experience as the “El Presi” chants began outside the stadium, and Jeff and Henry went out to give a wave.

They say never to meet your heroes, but all I can say is how much it cemented his legendary status in my mind. Even in this highest of moments, I was able to watch him be an incredible father, and a welcoming person to a blogger from half way across the world.

I was able to tour the behind the scenes of the stadium, celebrate the victory with the players, lifting the trophy, meeting Leganes players with favorites such as Cisse and Neyou, and kicking the ball around on a La Liga pitch.

It was surreal. During my time there, I had a chance to be interviewed for a Documentary on what Luhnow is doing in futbol and a fan’s perspective. I was excited as having covered the Astros revolution and having been a fan of Leganes since Luhnow, it finally felt like his legacy may be remembered in the way I believed it should be.

One question, asked my perspective on Jeff Luhnow and his personality. I think it was aimed around his reputation as a cold hearted, calculated, individual focused solely on winning. I answered that I didn’t know Jeff well enough to really answer that question, but looking back, I don’t believe that’s fair or correct. I make no claims of knowing Jeff well, but I think my trip somewhat helps answer the question.

Despite being in the middle of the championship/promotion chase, managing multiple teams, being a father and husband, and more– he took the time out to not only rescue my trip with tickets to the game, but taking the time to talk with me, allowing for me to have the experience I did on this trip. Jeff, Gina, and their son Henry were absolutely incredible, and I was so happy to hear about their love for Houston and the Astros even now.

I’m an Astros fan first, and while baseball will always be my favorite sport, I highly recommend to anyone who enjoyed following the revolution that Luhnow had on the Astros to follow along on a similar revolution as Blue Crow Sports builds a network of clubs across the world.

While Luhnow’s influence on the Astros and baseball is still felt throughout our roster and Leganes’ promotion to the first division is a massive chapter, it still feels like just an early one in the empire that Luhnow is building in the world of Futbol.

If you’re interested in following the incredible Leganes story, a rare Leganes game will be televised here on ABC at 11:30 CT as they face off against Real Madrid. Real Madrid is in the discussion for the best team in the world, and with ~17x Leganes payroll, the Pepineros will be up against their biggest challenge yet.

I honestly, can’t thank CrawfishBoxes enough. This whole trip, the evolution of my fandom both in baseball and soccer all come back to this site.