Former LA Lakers star Steve Nash went through plenty of ups and downs in his NBA career, but little did he know that these fluctuations would continue long after his retirement. Nash famously became a shareholder in Spanish soccer club RCD Mallorca in 2016 and has continued to act in that capacity ever since.
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The former 8-time NBA All-Star recently joined Dallas Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki for an interview, and the two discussed his journey with the historic club. Established in 1916, RCD Mallorca is almost 109 years old and in all these years has seen more ups and downs than the characters on HBO’s Emmy-nominated The Pitt.
The club used to be a regular in La Liga, the top division of Spanish soccer, but has been relegated more than enough since the 1970s, and has even found itself languishing in the 4th division at times. During Nash’s tenure, Mallorca has been relegated as far as the 3rd division and has also been promoted to La Liga a couple of times. But it has been a constant struggle for the team to stay up.
Discussing this nearly decade-long journey with Nowitzki, Nash said, “We came to the club in second division, stayed up on the last day of the season our first year and thought, ‘okay, we got this now, we got this all squared away.’ You know, sign some new players and the next year, went down to third division, which is crazy obviously here. I think there’s like 80 teams, 4 regions in the third division.”
“But we tried to invest in the team and stick with that and we came right back up,” he noted, adding, “Ironically, when we came up to the second division, we said, ‘okay, now we are here, let’s just solidify and build something longstanding and immediately went up to La Liga. So, it’s kind of a crazy beginning to our journey.”
But the roller-coaster ride didn’t end there. They soon found themselves getting relegated again. Thankfully, they returned to the top division right away and have stayed there since. It’s been about 5 years of La Liga for them now!
“So, incredible start, lots of craziness, incredible playoff with Deportivo La Coruna where we scored three goals at home to come back 2-0 at their place to go up. It’s been a lot of fun and source of pride for us to be part of this 100+ year old club,” Nash added.
As far as Nash is concerned, it’s important for a club to pick a north star and figure out what they want to represent and achieve.
“What we want our teams to look like, our academy to look like, how we want our players to behave,” he noted. Then, with a chuckle, he added that it wasn’t a good look when a bunch of Americans and a Canadian like him joined the club, only for the team to be relegated to the third division within a year and a half.
Nash believed that Mallorca did something that was against the norm in La Liga. Instead of changing coaches every year till they find someone who has all the answers, they spent a lot of resources to refine their process and develop their team and their coaches. They have picked a system and are going to ride or die with it. Given that they haven’t been relegated in a while, it seems to be working.
