Six teams went into the final game within two points of each other and the last relegation place. There was drama and tears“Life hits you hard sometimes; this is one of those times,” Papa Pezzolano said when at last it was over and it was confirmed that his team was the one heading to the second division, hope eventually extinguished in the 100th minute of the final day of the longest season. “The dressing room is destroyed,” the Real Valladolid coach admitted as his voice cracked and the tears came. Across the way, that could have been meant literally; in there, the beers were open and Getafe’s players, survival secured, were climbing on tables and leaping about, crashing into each...
Since Eduardo Coudet took over, no one in La Liga has won more, scored more or conceded fewer. It is a new dawnEduardo Coudet was pissed off, getting angrier and more drunk by the minute. The fact that Rosario Central had been beaten 4-0 in the first leg of the Copa Conmebol final was bad enough, but it was past two in the morning and he was still stuck inside an empty stadium, unable to escape the humiliation, left with nothing to do but dwell on it. That and drink. His name came up with Pablo Sánchez, sent to the anti-doping room together. But however hard they tried, however much beer they downed – and it was a lot –...
Their 2-2 draw at the Bernabéu lifted Celta back out of the relegation zone; more importantly, it lifted them emotionallyFirst Joseph Aidoo took Zinedine Zidane down, then Denis Suárez and Santi Mina did the same to his defence. The first hit was harder but the second hurt more. There were 30 minutes left at the Bernabéu when everyone saw the Ghanaian tumble off the pitch and crash into the Real Madrid manager, knocking him to the floor and giving him a bloody lip; there were four minutes left when the Galician saw something none of them had, except the man born in the same province a month earlier. And before anyone knew it, so swift and smooth, via some hidden...
Real Betis v Celta Vigo was supposed to be the end. But one coach looks like he will still be standing after a dramatic finaleMaybe the best way to grasp what happened on Wednesday night and what it meant is to pause it and watch it back again frame by frame, a thousand things in a single shot, a thousand more in the next. Look at Celta de Vigo: you can actually pinpoint the second where their hearts rip in half. It’s the same second when life floods back into Betis. The clock shows 89.47 and the ball drops to Nabil Fekir, near the penalty spot. Stop it there: everyone’s looking at him, close. Only Iago Aspas isn’t in the...
It’s not that Iago Aspas is Celta’s best player; it is that, as this weekend demonstrated once again, Iago Aspas is CeltaIn the end, it all became too much and Iago Aspas broke down and wept, slumped into his seat sobbing. One by one, his team-mates came to him, putting an arm around his heaving shoulders, taking it in turns to hold him. All around, they sang: 22,315 of them, people just like him, chanting his name. He sat, eyes red, and half-watched the final minutes of a match he had won, lost in his thoughts. Through his tears, football was a better place, more meaningful. Balaídos certainly was, signs of life at last – and this was life. Here...