At 38 years and 140 days, the Real Betis forward has become the oldest player to score three in a La Liga matchThey were all there except him, everyone waiting for the old man again. It was six minutes to two, time to go, and in the tunnel at the Benito Villamarín 21 players lined up ready to go out alongside the referee, Valentín Pizarro Gómez, and one of his assistants. Just up the stairs, the other linesman stood by the dressing-room door, flag in one hand, getting a little impatient. “We’re only missing Joaquín,” he called down, “… yeah I know.” Alongside him the Betis manager, Joan Francesc Ferrer ‘Rubi’, wore a look that said what do you want...
Abhorrent and filthy were among the words used to describe the win at Legans there is a reason Messi wanted NeymarBarcelona beat Legans 2-1 at Butarque on Saturday afternoon and are top of the table. Undefeated, they also lead their Champions League group, ahead of Internazionale and Borussia Dortmund. Win on Wednesday night and they will be mathematically qualified from the competitions hardest group with a game to spare. They have lost just one of their last 11 matches, winning nine, and have scored more league goals than anybody in Spain: seven more than second-placed Real Madrid and more than twice as many as Athletic Bilbao in fifth, Atltico Madrid in fourth and Sevilla in third. When they played Sevilla,...
This is the game you can’t afford to lose, and the Sevilla coach’s wild eyes showed what winning the 130th derby meantWhen it was over, Julen Lopetegui started roaring, mouth so wide you could fit his half of Seville inside. He wore a wild look in his eyes and punched the air with the kind of force that dislocates shoulders. Which might not sound so unusual, but it is for him. Éver Banega was the first to leap into his arms, and then others followed, violence in the embrace.Across the pitch, in the far corner where Banega was going now, the rest of Sevilla’s players hopped about, doing that disco thing, waving their arms up and down and shouting. Way...
With not much money but spirit to burn, the club are using footage of fan power to drive their La Liga returnBack in the summer, when the recently promoted Osasuna were building a squad for their return to La Liga, they sent videos to the players they were trying to persuade to join them. They didn’t have much money – only three teams have a smaller budget – and they didn’t have success to sell, either: the second division title is the only thing they have won, and they had just done that for the first time in 58 years. But they could offer something different.When the tapes went out, sales pitches carefully edited in-house, they weren’t filled with 101...
The Basque club’s book-publishing and literature and film festivals are a model for how smaller clubs can express their identities in an era of super-club domination“They push me against the wall, hands on my head. They frisk me, recriminating me in a language I don’t understand. Something’s happening, but I don’t know what. Before I know it, it’s happening. I respond to their threats by shouting: ‘Please, help, please!’” So begins Togo, a book in which fear is a recurring theme. Written by Óscar de Marcos, it tells the story of the journeys that shaped him, the chapters alternating between his arrival in Africa and at Athletic Club Bilbao.In the book De Marcos says his parents wanted him to be...