Welcome to…Mutilvera

Small in senior football, big in youth football

Mutilvera claims to have the ‘biggest youth academy’ in Navarre, consisting of 40 teams in total. Nevertheless, the first team is also noteworthy, as Mutilvera became one of the strongest Navarrese teams – behind Osasuna, of course. It’s the story of the club that lived very different lives in the 20th and 21st centuries. Welcome to…Mutilvera.

Mutilvera was knocked out dramatically from the playoffs for promotion to the Segunda División B in 2018. © Miguel Osés.

A navarrese valley

Mutilva, spelled Mutiloa in Basque, is a village in the Aranguren Valley, located just above Pamplona. The town has around 10,000 inhabitants and is primarily known for its beautiful nature, lying on a plateau of 461 meters and being surrounded by forests, big lakes, and rock formations.

The Castle of Irulegui is the primary piece of architecture in the valley. © Diario de Navarra.

Village football

Unión Deportiva Mutilvera was founded in 1968 and was the first-ever football team in Mutilva. During the first decades, the club’s main focus was the youth academy, only registering its senior team officially in 1993. It took some time for the mutilveros to reach a prestigious division, which happened in the new century.

The kit evolution of Mutilvera. Playing with a full-white kit until the 1980s, Mutilvera currently has a shirt in which white is accompanied by blue and red in a subtle way. © lafutbolteca.com

Mutilvera achieved promotion to the Tercera División in 2001, leaving the lower leagues once and for all. Mútil was already close to reaching the Segunda B after a few years but needed some more time to establish itself as one of the stronger teams in the Tercera. They achieved this in the 2010s and were rewarded with a promotion to the third tier in 2016.

The main stand of the Estadio Mutilnova. © UD Mutilvera.

The Segunda División B turned out to be too competitive for Mutilvera, having to play against teams like Cultural Leonesa, Racing de Santander, and Burgos. However, in the following seasons, the blancos qualified for the playoffs every time and returned to the Segunda B in 2020.

The whites celebrate a goal in the victory against Beti Kozkor, securing their first place and, therefore, promotion to the Segunda B. © FNF.

The 2020s appeared to have different outcomes in mind than the decade before. Mutilvera stayed up in 2021, as well as in 2022 and 2023. These are the best results in the club’s history, complemented by the Navarrese team’s presence in the Copa del Rey, which is always an important source of pride for teams in semiprofessional football.

Eder Abaurrea against Diego Láinez in a cup match in 2021. Even though Mutilvera shocked the entire Mutilnova Stadium with a quick goal, Real Betis managed to come back and leave Navarre with a 1-3 victory. © Miguel Osés.

The future

After three seasons in the Segunda Federación, Mutilvera is ready for the fourth one. However, many key players have left Mutilva for other adventures, leaving the village’s principal club with an almost completely renovated squad full of local talent and a new coach. It will be one of the most challenging seasons so far for Mútil, but the team has shown before that it’s capable of defying the odds. And, as always, the club’s youth academy is blooming, which means that there will be enough young players eager to prove themselves this season. This was…Mutilvera.

This shirt with a red and a blue stripe is yet another creative way to implement these colors in a white shirt. © J. P. Urdiroz.

Sources

• Borchers, L. (2021). GOLAZO. Self-published.
• Borchers, L. (2022). CARA O CRUZ. Self-published.
• https://mutilvera.com/el-club/historia/
• http://lafutbolteca.com/union-deportiva-mutilvera/