Deportivo La CoruñaIn June 2026, in the year of its 120th anniversary, one small word changed the name of one of Galicia's best-known football clubs. For decades the club was known in Spanish as Deportivo La Coruña, and its official name was Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña. But "La Coruña" is the traditional Spanish form, and the city's only official name is the Galician "A Coruña", as required by Galician law 2/1998. After a binding vote of season-ticket holders, in which 79.41% of valid votes backed the change, the shareholders' meeting unanimously approved the new name on 23 June 2026: Real Club Deportivo de A Coruña in Spanish and Real Club Deportivo da Coruña in Galician. The crest was updated as well. In a club that has changed its name several times, it was the end of the longest-lasting version.
The club was founded in 1906 as Club Deportivo de la Sala Calvet, formed by members of a city gymnasium founded by Federico Fernández-Amor Calvet. The title "Real" was later granted by King Alfonso XIII. The players wear white and blue, which gave them the nickname Os Brancoazuis, and they are also called Herculinos. The first ground, Corral de la Gaiteira, was soon replaced by a field next to the Riazor beach.
Today's Estadio Riazor, opened in 1944, stands right by the Atlantic beach and has been the heart of the club for decades. Visiting teams know that a trip to A Coruña means wind, rain and a loud crowd, and it was here that the club's biggest matches were played.
The club's greatest chapter is known as Super Dépor and covers the years from 1991 to 2004. It peaked in 1999–2000, when the team coached by Javier Irureta won its first and so far only Spanish league title, five points ahead of Barcelona and Valencia. The squad featured, among others, Noureddine Naybet, Djalminha, Fran, Mauro Silva, Roy Makaay, Diego Tristán and Juan Carlos Valerón. A Coruña became the second-smallest city, after San Sebastián, ever to produce a Spanish champion, with a population of about 250,000. The title also gave the club its first place in the Champions League.
Deportivo won the Copa del Rey twice, in 1995 and 2002, and the Supercopa de España three times, in 1995, 2000 and 2002. The 2002 final became known as El Centenariazo: on 6 March 2002, the day of Real Madrid's 100th anniversary, Deportivo beat them 2–1 at their own Santiago Bernabéu stadium. The champions of 2000 turned out to be the guests Real least wanted at its birthday party.
The club's most famous European night came in the 2003–04 Champions League. In the quarter-final AC Milan, the defending champions, won the first leg 4–1 at San Siro, and the tie seemed settled. In the second leg at Riazor, later dubbed the "Miracle of Riazor", Deportivo won 4–0 and went through 5–4 on aggregate. In the semi-final it was stopped by Porto, the eventual winners, but the comeback against Milan remains one of the most remembered in Champions League history.
Today the club is led by president Juan Carlos Escotet, and the change of name shows that tradition and the Galician language matter to Deportivo as much as sporting history. For supporters who have called the club Dépor for generations, the new name does not alter the main thing: the same team in the same colours, playing beside the same ocean.