On May 14, 1939, barely a month and a half after the report certifying the end of the civil war, a somewhat impromptu soccer tournament began, with just ten teams and named the I Copa del Generalísimo. Without representatives from Catalonia, Madrid or Valencia, with unusual participants such as Baracaldo Oriamendi or Aviación Nacional (a team from the Air Force that later merged with Athletic Madrid to make way for Atlético Aviación), the qualifiers followed one another and on 25 June 1939, the final was played on Montjuïc. Sevilla was proclaimed champion, easy winner by 6 to 2 against Racing de Ferrol.
The football of the new regime was already underway and very soon, on December 3, 1939, the League also returned. The first League of the Franco regime brought together 12 competitors and Espanyol was very close to the title.
Espanyol in the 1939-40 season was a team torn apart by the war, like all of them, but it knew how to reinforce itself correctly and formed a good team, perhaps with a short squad. After proclaiming himself champion of Catalonia without losing a single game, he made his debut in the first post-war League, winning nothing less than at Les Corts. Eight of the eleven starters that day were signings, with players who gave great performance to the blue and whites such as Jorge from the Canary Islands, the Catalans Llimós and Rovira (the latter later signed by Real Madrid), the Valencian striker Martínez Catalá, the greatest of the Gonzalvo brothers...
Spanish football was in the middle of a restructuring campaign. At the end of September 1939, the purge of the referees was completed, under the control of Pedro Escartín, a character of enormous power at the time, capable of maintaining himself as a First Division referee and at the same time writing chronicles of the matches he had just directed. In Catalonia, of the 125 referees from 1936, only 37 were able to continue.
In mid-November the composition of the highest category was finalized and a play-off was established between At. Aviación and Osasuna to determine who occupied the vacant position at Oviedo, which had its Buenavista field destroyed. The military won, and then they were League champions.
In February 1940, with the League already underway, a harsh six-year sanction was announced for footballers who left the Republican zone during the war and did not immediately move to the Francoist zone. In the case of Espanyol, the main person affected was their first-choice goalkeeper, Alberto Martorell, who was unable to reappear, with his sentence softened, until January 1941. During his absence, the blue and white team was covered by two effective goalkeepers: Trías and Navés, this then prominent traumatologist.
Those were times of forced militarization. Referees who did not impose a strong hand were punished and fines were also imposed on journalists who published comments "that diminish the authority of managers and especially referees." The control was military, the Spanish Football Federation was in the hands of Colonel Julián Troncoso, famous for announcing that in no case could a center forward earn more than a colonel. Both Barcelona and Espanyol proposed significant discounts on tickets for soldiers "who come in uniform." General Salvador Múgica was named honorary president of Barcelona, “a position that he accepted with pleasure”, and general Luis Orgaz became honorary vice-president of Espanyol, also “very pleased”.
And the League arrived. With a Espanyol that flew over the matches solidly, led from the bench by Patricio Caicedo and leader of the Primera from matchday 8 to 14. But on March 10, 1940, the fateful move to Seville arrived, where the numerous casualties facilitated the clearing. local triumph and a tie at 20 points at the top of the table between sevillistas and blanquiazules. On the return to Barcelona, by coach of course, the expedition suffered a spectacular accident in the rain, a few kilometers from Talavera de la Reina. The vehicle skidded in mud, slid down an embankment and flipped over. All the players suffered bruises and cuts of varying severity, especially Cayuela, who lost an eye, as well as Trías and Pérez, who sustained heavy blows to the head. The accident occurred around one in the morning. After waiting for half an hour, a truck passed by, allowing those most affected to be evacuated and giving notice of the situation. The rest of the expedition had to wait another two hours under intense cold. "We lit a fire, uncorked some bottles of cognac and started to sing popular songs," explained one of the footballers.
Espanyol requested the postponement of the next game, but the rival did not accept, and they had to play on the scheduled date. The blue and whites won and regained the lead alone, but it was the blue and white swan song. In the remaining six days he only added one victory. The League disappeared. Even so, the quality of the team with all its available elements was evident and immediately afterwards, in the Cup, they beat all their rivals including Real Madrid in the Vallecas final: 3-2.
