Villarreal v Barcelona was something wild and wonderful, a 4-4 draw that was as exhausting as it was exhilarating“A minute after the game, we could say a thousand barbaric things,” Vicente Iborra said, but none of them could ever express it as well as the look on his face as he stood there on the touchline trying to work out what had just happened and how. Behind him, Leo Messi hugged Santi Cazorla and, watching it, you kind of wished you could hug them too. “Peculiar,” Sergio Asenjo called it. “Mad,” Ernesto Valverde offered. “We’ve stabbed ourselves,” Iborra added. “Football’s given us quite a beating,” Javier Calleja said. Which was true, six points in three days somehow becoming just one,...
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...
The Barcelona forward was applauded by both sets of fans in the 4-1 victory over Betis – not because he scored three times, but because of how he scored“Truth is, I don’t remember anything like this,” Lionel Messi said but nor do they and their reaction said more than words, long abandoned as inadequate. There were five minutes left of a perfect performance when he took the shot that transfixed them and then turned them. Not so much hit first time as coaxed, the ball rose softly and curved gently, granting them time to take it in, inviting them to halt everything and watch it orbiting alone, so they did. Only Betis goalkeeper Pau López moved, seeing it float by,...
The most successful British footballer of his era deserves better than the image of aloof corporate excellence he has exuded in Madrid, and still has time to add some deeper textureAt times it seems funny that we still call professional footballers “players”. Mischief, fun, mucking about: these are not the first qualities that spring to mind watching elite footballers at work, hyper-stressed, pattern-running units of human muscle, moving parts inside the world’s favourite leisure machine.And yet playfulness remains the base note of all successful sport. No matter how much we mess around with the product, it is the human qualities that emerge through the bars. Related: Luis Suárez scores twice as Barcelona beat Real Madrid to reach cup final Related:...
Their talisman is injured and Celta Vigo are slumping badly at the wrong time, just as others are arresting their slidesCelta de Vigo’s fans saw hope disappear before their eyes. An hour had gone and José Luis Morales had just scored Levante’s third but it wasn’t only what was happening on the pitch that brought the fatalism flooding back at Balaídos, it was what was happening alongside it. There had been applause and anticipation when Iago Aspas, their captain and their everything, stepped into the sunlight and began warming up, tracksuit off ready to return after six weeks away; now there was silence as he ducked into the shadows and sat down again, worry and resignation written across his face...