A macabre final day in La Liga ended with a Hitchcock-style twist and horror for the most unlikely relegation candidates “Hitchcock could have written this,” Sergio González said when it was all over. Cádiz’s coach was shattered, soaking wet and could hardly walk, T-shirt muddy and back gone, but he’d do it all over again. Even the bit where, liberated at last, he threw himself through the rain and on to the grass at the feet of his players and their fans. Especially that bit: this was a team picture they had desperately wanted to take, the photo of a first division side. It had hurt, the man who hid his fears from those he led struggling to get up...
No one older had ever ever scored twice in La Liga. But that didn’t stop Molina and Granada leaving Mallorca in a hole“This was life or death,” Jorge Molina said and he had chosen life again, clinging on to primera, his place. It had taken him until he was 29 to reach the first division, finally making it around about the time a career in the lower leagues should have started winding down, eight seasons, five teams, three tiers, more than 250 games and a hundred goals after he had begun in Benidorm. Twice it had been taken away from him, twice he returned, fighting back when he was supposed to be finished, and there was no way he was...
This wasn’t supposed to happen. But Granada are only the third promoted team to ever be top of La Liga as late as thisThe first clásico weekend has a habit of shaping the season, a glimpse of the way things are and the way they’re going to be, pieces starting to fall into place. Take last year, when Barcelona beat Madrid 5-1 at the Camp Nou in Week 10, got Julen Lopetegui the sack and won the league. Or the year before when they got a 3-0 victory at the Bernabéu in Week 17 and won the league; the year before that when Madrid got an 90th-minute Sergio Ramos equaliser that felt like a winner in Week 14, held on...
From Real Madrid’s historic double to a bottom three in a league of their own, via explosive managerial cameos and that statue, it’s the annual awardsLuka Modric went to lift the trophy but there was nothing in his hands, just a look on his face that said it all. Beside him, Gareth Bale was giggling. Real Madrid won the league, shouting, embracing and leaping around the pitch at the Rosaleda where they had just defeated Málaga on the final day, but there was something missing. “What do you mean, no trophy?” the Croatian asked Madrid’s press officer. “They’ll hand it out at the start of next season,” came the reply. “So now we celebrate here, we go back to the...
The former Arsenal captain flailed wildly on the touchlines as a borrowed team of players who could not understand him or one another were hammered by Celta Vigo’s second-string – and there was little sympathy from fans or pressAt the end of his first game as coach of Granada, Tony Adams strode on to the pitch and, pointing to the stands at Los Cármenes, told his players to applaud the fans. When they did, the fans booed them. Those that were still there did, anyway. A total of 13,442 came and by then most had gone again. It was late: late on a Sunday night, late in the season and too late to save them. Holy week ended with no...