In the beginning of their history they weren’t too successful. They played in lower divisions up to the last decade of the century. In 1993 Malaga won the ninth group of the Tercera and obtained the right to play in the Segunda but got relegated the following season. They were on verge of collapse as the club could hardly make both ends meet.
In 2000 the club was rich in young talented players and a new modern stadium was introduced. The biggest success came under the management of Joaquin Peiro. The club started performing in European Cups, clinched the Intertoto Cup passing through such teams as Gent, Villarreal and Willem II. Then in the UEFA Cup they successively beat Amica from Poland, AEK from Greece, Zeleznicar from Bosnia, Leeds United from England but then they lost to the Portuguese Boavista FC in the semi-final. The man who was making probably the biggest impact in the squad of the time was Julio del Valdez.
Eventually their coach left and the team started falling apart. Malaga was left by Julio del Valdez, Kiki Musampa, Pedro Contreras. One remarkable result came under Juande Ramos’ management when they stunned Barcelona by 5-1. Salva, playing on loan, celebrated a hat-trick. The next year Juande Ramos set to leave for Sevilla to manage the club from Andalusia.
The next manager to work with the team was Gregorio Manzano who showed poor results and didn’t prevent Malaga from falling to the Segunda where the club’s results weren’t so optimistic and the team was about to transfer to even lower division. Malaga sold the best players but nevertheless managed to deliver good performance the following season. They won 8 out of the first 11 games and despite a certain slump in mid-season got promoted to the Primera.
In the season 2011/12 Malaga finished 4th in the Championship, the highest position ever for the club and got a chance to qualify for the Champions League.
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