Málaga, Las Palmas and Deportivo La Coruña will almost certainly be relegated after Paco López returned to his boyhood club to mastermind their stunning surge towards safety
“Keep calm,” Levante’s manager, Paco López, said but he knew better than anyone that it was a bit late for that. Maybe tomorrow. For now, Sunday lunchtime in the Valencian sunshine, it was time to enjoy it, like he’d said from the start. His players had thrown shirts into the crowd and turned the pitch into a mosh pit, pushing and pogoing, dancing round a circle, emotion escaping as they embraced and 24,001 red-and-blue flags waved: 24,000 around the ground and one high above them all. Along the east stand, the division’s team’s flags fly in league order, arranged every Monday by Raimon, the groundsman with the chaotic mini-museum below the other stand. Levante’s is 17 in; it shouldn’t slide right now. Barcelona, Atlético, Valencia and Madrid will join them up there again next season.
It’s not all over, hence the call for calm, but nearly. They were celebrating being alive, survival all but secured. A 2-1 victory over Las Palmas means Levante will almost certainly be back; Deportivo La Coruña, Las Palmas, and Málaga almost certainly won’t be. With seven games left, they’re eight, 10 and 14 points adrift respectively. Between them, they’ve had nine goalkeepers, nine coaches, 60 defeats, and virtually no discernible plan. Now they have virtually no chance, either – almost gone already, slipping into segunda without much of a fight. “Until the calculator says otherwise, we have to believe,” said the Las Palmas manager Paco Jémez.
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Deportivo de La Coruña 3-2, Málaga, Alavés 2-0 Getafe, Celta Vigo 4-0 Sevilla, Real Betis 2-0 Eibar, Barcelona 3-1 Leganés, Levante 2-1 Las Palmas, Real Madrid 1-1 Atlético Madrid, Real Sociedad 5-0 Verona, Valencia 1-0 Espanyol.
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