Força Lleida

Barcelona's second string, Joventut de Badalona and BAXI Manresa are the opponents whose fixtures Lleida circle: any of them, played on Catalan soil, gets called the "derbi català". For a club that spent most of its life in the second division, those games carried the weight of a city measuring itself against the region's bigger names.

Lleida arrived at that position by accident of collapse. Club Esportiu Lleida Basquetbol, founded in 1997, dissolved under financial problems, and in the summer of 2012 a group of businessmen put up €180,000 to buy its LEB Oro licence. Força Lleida was the result, and it won the Lliga Catalana LEB in its first season.

The worst moment came in 2016. Lleida finished last in LEB Oro and should have dropped to LEB Plata. Instead, FC Barcelona Bàsquet B swapped its vacant place in the second tier for Lleida's vacant place in the third, so the Lleidatans stayed where they were. Eight years later they were promoted.

That promotion came in 2024, through the LEB Oro playoffs. Lleida beat CB Lucentum Alicante, then CB San Pablo Burgos, and met Movistar Estudiantes in the final. Beating them sent the club into the top-tier Liga ACB for the first time. Two more Lliga Catalana LEB titles, in 2022 and 2023, had come in the seasons before.

Home games are played in bordeaux, white and blue at the Espai Fruita Barris Nord, which holds 6,100. It is the arena a city of this size filled during the climb from a bought licence to the top flight.