Copa del Rey

The Spanish Copa del Rey is the equivalent to England's FA cup, yet nowhere near as big. Unlike the 700+ teams that England fields, the Copa del Rey is only open to it's La Liga Premiere Division, Segunda A, Segunda B, and the champions of the Tercera Division. This usually makes up about 83 teams that compete in the tournament.

El Copa del Rey was founded in 1903, making it the 2nd oldest tournaments in Europe, behind the FA Cup. The German DFB Pokal was founded in 1935 and the Coppa Italia was founded in 1922. In my opinion the professional Spanish leagues are superior to the German and Italian leagues, however 2nd to the English leagues. Since Barcelona is my favorite club, I thought it would be fitting to better understand the professional Spanish leagues and their domestic cup.

Copa del Rey Format

The tournament coincides with the regular futbol season, beginning in August and ending in April. Just like the FA Cup, the tournament is a single-elimination knock-out round compromised of rounds. In the first round, the lower teams of the Tercera Division and Segunda Division B are drawn to face off. The winners move on to the second round. In the second round the teams of the Segunda Division A enter the tournament to face the winners of the previous round. (One thing to note here is that as teams advance through the rounds, they are paired up by drawings instead of a consistent bracket format.)

In the fourth round, there are 32 teams remaining when the premier teams of La Liga enter the tournament. At this point it becomes a free-for-all, however the format changes to double match elimination. This means each team plays each other twice, home and away, and the higher aggregate moves on to the next round of 16. Once again the winners of each round are matched up by a luck of the draw, all the way to the finals. The final is a single match played in a neutral stadium.

Copa Del Rey History

Club	Wins	Last final won	Runners-up	Last final lost
Barcelona	26	2012	10	2011
Athletic Bilbao	23	1984	12	2012
Real Madrid	18	2011	20	2013
Atlético Madrid	10	2013	9	2010
Valencia	7	2008	9	1995
Zaragoza	6	2004	5	2006
Sevilla	5	2010	2	1962
Espanyol	4	2006	5	1957
Real Unión	3	1927	1	1922
Betis	2	2005	2	1997
Deportivo La Coruña	2	2002	0
Real Sociedad	1	1987	5	1988
Arenas	1	1919	3	1927
Mallorca	1	2003	2	1998
Bizcaya	1	1902	1	1907
Ciclista	1	1909	0
Racing de Irún	1	1913	0
Celta de Vigo	0		3	2001
Getafe	0		2	2008
Valladolid	0		2	1989
Sporting de Gijón	0		2	1982
Español de Madrid	0		2	1910
Osasuna	0		1	2005
Recreativo	0		1	2003
Castilla CF‡	0		1	1980
Las Palmas	0		1	1978
Castellón	0		1	1973
Elche	0		1	1969
Granada	0		1	1959
Racing de Ferrol	0		1	1939
Sabadell	0		1	1935
Europa	0		1	1923
Espanya	0		1	1914
Gimnástica	0		1	1912
Real Vigo Sporting	0		1	1908