La Rioja

Handball arrived in Logroño's sporting landscape in 2003, when the club took shape under the name Darien Logroño.

The nickname Los Franjivinos fuses the red-and-white stripes on the shirt with the region's other export, wine, and it has followed the club through its later renamings to CBM La Rioja and then BM Logroño La Rioja. What the name has not changed is a habit of finishing second. Three third-place finishes in the league between 2014 and 2016 sit alongside runner-up spots in the Copa del Rey on four separate occasions, the most recent in 2023, plus lost finals in the Supercopa de España and the Copa Asobal. In Europe, the EHF Cup semi-finals of 2010 and 2011 mark the club's furthest reach abroad. No major trophy has followed any of it.

Rubén Garabaya's name carries more weight at the Palacio de los Deportes than most: he captained the side and is remembered there as a club legend rather than just another player who passed through. That distinction matters, because the more common pattern at Logroño has been the opposite — established players arriving to play a season or two before moving on.

Geography settles who the enemy is. Bidasoa Irún, the nearest handball power in the north of Spain, provides the fixture both sets of supporters call the derbi.