All of that and it comes to this. The game that had everything, on the weekend that had it all, had its ending too. Mestalla, so loud your ears hurt, fell quiet for the first and last time. Briefly but it did, as if taking in what had just happened – Luis Suárez down, Alberto Undiano Mallenco blowing his whistle this time – and what was just about to. One shot, one opportunity. One moment to define a match Luis Enrique said had been “true to what a Valencia-Barcelona is: tense to the end”. The very end, in fact: 6.05 on a Saturday evening, the stadium clock long stopped at 90. It had gone from 0-1 to 1-1, 1-1 to 2-1, and 2-1 to 2-2. From there it could have gone anywhere, wide open and wild, but it came here.
There are last minute penalties and then there was this. It’s not like it doesn’t happen, just not quite like at Mestalla, not just the last men standing but the best, smoke still rising around them, the smell of sulphur. Literally and figuratively in Valencia, land of rockets, bangers and burning effigies. “Mascletá!” – a festival of firecrackers – shouted the cover of Sport the day after a game that was intense and controversial, emotional and enjoyable, in which tackles flew and goalkeepers did too, one that had over 20 shots . And one last one to settle it all, for good or bad. Like it was all building to and condensed in this moment, like two superheroes face to face. So, we meet at last.
“Hitchcock at Mestalla,” ran the headline in AS after a game in which Valencia came out fast, hard, crunching into challenges, the knife between their teeth. Neymar took the hits again, André Gomes got one too, right on the shin, but Andrés Iniesta came off the worst from a challenge that was far from the worst, applauded off on a stretcher. Barcelona took the lead, Suárez – in an offside position and in front of the goalkeeper Diego Alves – leaping over Leo Messi’s shot to let it go in. Alves saved from Suárez, twice, and Marc-André ter Stegen blocked Daniel Parejo. Undiano Mallenco ignored a push from Samuel Umtiti on Rodrigo and Mestalla erupted. The first half ended 1-0 but it could have been more and it would be; it wasn’t over, everyone knew.
Valencia’s players headed down the tunnel angry, while the sporting director headed to the dressing room to give the referee a piece of his mind; they emerged angrier, or so it seemed. Ivan Rakitic hit the post. Munir Haddadi came on at half-time, and scored against his former team eight minutes later. Paco Alcácer didn’t come on at all, despite chants from the Valencia fans for him to come off the bench and despite Barcelona having to chase the game. Munir’s goal was brilliantly taken and silently celebrated. By him, anyway. Everyone else went wild. Valencia had taken a step forward – about 40 yards forward – and the game opened and stretched. Rodrigo swept in the second from a gorgeous Nani pass.
Three minutes had passed between the goals, minutes Luis Enrique called “half-mad” but not half as mad as the 35 that remained. Barcelona had been caught; one Valencia player privately suggested that, 1-0 up, creating chances, they had thought it would be easy. Now they had to chase; instead of control, there was chaos. It wasn’t open because of tiredness, Barcelona’s manager said, but because they were too keen to turn it round. They knew that with Sevilla-Atlético and Madrid-Athletic to come, defeat might mean trailing by five points, while victory could mean pulling ahead of Madrid. André Gomes was out there, seemingly dazed in the middle of it all and soon replaced by Denis Suárez, but the rest raced around. The game got faster, longer and more chaotic. Rakitic headed, Alves saved, and Luia Suárez smacked in the rebound.
Still it accelerated. “We had chances to win it and chances to lose it too,” Luis Enrique admitted. “We gave them too many opportunities.” Neymar had half a chance, so did Luis Suárez. Munir too. Nani had a whole one, the chance: one on one, clean through, he put it wide.
Rakitic was everywhere, putting out fires. And Aymen Abdennour, on at left-back for Valencia, threw himself into every ball, greeted with a roar.
Until, in the last minute, Valencia, chasing the game every bit as hard as Barcelona, lost the ball at one end and immediately found Messi running at them up at the other end. He slipped the pass to Luis Suárez and Abdennour made one last lunge. Suárez went down. Silence, then another roar. If there had been doubts about the challenge on Rodrigo, there were none now.
And so, it comes to this. 2-2, 91 minutes had gone, and there’s Messi: the best player in the world, sure, but the man who’s missed 20 penalties for the team that’s made a habit of not scoring them, the latest three days before. In front of him stands Alves – “and madre mía he looks enourmous in that goal,” Luis Enrique says later.
Alves’s former coach believes he has a “gift” and his gift is saving penalties; there’s something almost inevitable about it now. He’s stopped more than anyone else ever in Spain including his last three and, with 45 faced, 21 scored, 22 saved, one wide, and one post, the stats show he’s more likely to save it than you are to score it – whoever you are. He’s saved from Cristiano Ronaldo, Antoine Griezmann, Fredi Kanouté and Diego Costa. Leo Messi, too. In 2012.
Messi knows. And just in case he doesn’t, Alves helpfully reminds him. Leaning in, tapping Messi on the chest with a gloved finger, he tells him: “I’ve stopped you before, remember?” After all, the art of stopping penalties is, by his own admission, the art of “psychological war” and his reputation goes before him; more importantly, it stands before them.
Messi nods gently once, but doesn’t say anything; he just looks down at the ball in his hands. Rakitic steps in, so does Sergio Busquets, trying to get Alves out of there. The referee tells them to leave it to him. He ushers Alves back, who now decides he needs to stop for a drink of water. Undiano doesn’t agree. It’s taken long enough already; almost two minutes have passed.
“Alves! Alves! Alves!” the fans shout. On the touchline, Luis Enrique shouts to stick it down the middle.
Messi doesn’t hear him. How could he in this din? He runs up with the clock at 93.23. Alves steps out early and quickly, diagonally forwards to his right, narrowing the angle. He goes the right way, does everything he can, but the ball is hit hard, low and right in the corner, so close to his hand but just out of reach. Messi celebrates, Barcelona’s players pile on, screaming and celebrating. Neymar says something along the lines of “up yours”. From the stands, a bottle is thrown, full of water, and lands right in the middle. Suárez and Neymar go down, Javier Mascherano stumbles backwards.
Messi lets loose, celebrating even more, clenching his fists and pointing. Alves tries to hold him back, Enzo Pérez too, but something has taken over.
Valencia’s fans are furious; the point has been taken from them and they think unfairly. Their sporting director, Suso García Pitarch, accuses the referee, calling him “lamentable” and saying he’ll be ashamed when he watches on TV later. If so, he won’t be the only one. Prandelli is more subtle, speaking in Italian without a translator and using a phrase they all need translating, “sudditanza psicologica”: referees are psychologically subservient to the big teams, he suggests. And Valencian sports paper Super Deporte is as subtle as ever. The next day it leads on an act of “chorizity” – Spain’s spicy sausage, you see, also refers to theft – and the day after that they go for “Farca”.
At the end Prandelli sent his players back out to applaud the fans. “It’s hard to digest right now. [But] I’m proud of my team: I prefer a brave team to a timid one,” he says.
Luis Enrique is proud too. There’s something eloquent in Messi’s celebration, in the release – it is not just about the bottle or the fans, but the tension of the match and that moment, the responsibility and the pressure of a penalty that most probably expected him to miss; about the injury to Iniesta; and about the way Barcelona came back. The fact they did at all, and what they would have lost had they not, Mundo Deportivo suggesting this is the kind of victory that wins titles. There’s the satisfaction of having emerged from a battle, the enjoyment of the epic over the academic. “This is a team with faith,” Luis Enrique says, even if he admits: “I prefer to have control and this was the complete opposite. Sometimes you get a mad game.”
And sometimes it’s good that way. Very good, according Marca for whom Xavi Hernandez (no, not that one) writes: “Last minute goals always feel orgasmic.” Sport calls it a “comeback of gods”, in which “football beat anti-football” and even Barcelona’s vice-president Jordi Mestre says: “I prefer this to a boring game.”
“It tastes better this way,” Luis Suárez insists.
Talking points
This was a weekend of opportunity and obligation in which the six teams who’ve won 81 of the 85 league championships ever played, faced each other – five of them in a top six separated by just three points. The sixth, Valencia, played their first home game under a new manager who, after pulling them from the relegation zone last week, was asked if he could take them to the Champions League. A weekend in which the the team in fifth, Villarreal, played seventh-placed Las Palmas. There was a Galician derby, too. A bit like one of those Super Saturdays or Magic Mondays then, only the football was good.
So much for the big three walking it in Spain. Or even the big two. A last-minute winner for Barcelona, Atlético losing to Sevilla at the Pizjuán, and Real Madrid needing an 83rd minute goal from Álvaro Morata to beat Athletic Bilbao – after Inaki Williams could twice have ended it. On Saturday morning, Atlético were top. On Saturday afternoon, Barcelona were top. On Sunday evening, Sevilla were top. And by late on Sunday night, Madrid were top. Atlético, beaten for the first time this season, ended the weekend down in fifth. Athletic are only three points behind them. “I’m proud of my team,” Sevilla’s Jorge Sampaoli said.
The Athletic Bilbao coach, Ernesto Valverde, again demonstrated the class so few others do. He admitted it was hard for him to believe his team deserved to lose at the Bernabéu, but then when he was pushed as to whether a different result would have been “fair” (real answer: probably, yeah), he replied: “No, look: I’m the Athletic manager and I see it from our perspective – ask Zidane and he will probably say differently.
There were 33 goals this weekend but none so good this week or in fact any week than the one scored by Kevin-Prince Boateng for Las Palmas at Villarreal. A beautiful move that began with 18 passes from one end of the pitch to the other and ended with a lovely dinked ball into the box from Viera, a lovelier volleyed backheel assist, and an even lovelier volleyed finish from Boateng. That put Las Palmas into the lead but it was not enough. A last-minute goal for Cédric Bakambu gave Villarreal a 2-1 victory after a very ropey penalty had allowed Nicola Sansone to make it 1-1. “It’s not the first time,” Quique Setien spat. “And I would like to know, if it was the other way round, whether the referee would have the balls to give it? There’s no respect for the teams lower down.”
Diego Simeone didn’t wear a suit and Atlético lost for the first time. Now, that may be a coincidence, but Atlético lost for the first time too. What’s not coincidence is the way Sevilla performed in a 1-0 victory that was clinched with Stephen N’Zonzi releasing his inner Kanouté, striding through to score the only goal of a game that was intense and fascinating in the rain at the Pizjuán. Atlético, playing more on the counter than in previous matches, and with Griezmann everywhere again, were not at their best but certainly weren’t awful and could have won it: Correa scuffed the clearest chance.
But Sevilla were superb, producing their best performance of the season. N’Zonzi was fantastic and so, yet again, was Samir Nasri, playing all over the midfield and always willing to drop into a deep slightly left-sided position to get them moving. It was from there he produced the move of the game with a superb turn, determined run, two lovely one-twos and a shot against the post. “This game will show us where we are,” the Sevilla striker Luciano Vietto had said. The answer, then, is: in a very good place. “This was an important game to consolidate what we are doing and to build our identity,” Sampaoli said. So what is that identity? “To have no fear, don’t wait, to think more about their goal than ours.” Sounds good. Looks good too.
Granada and Sporting were, well, kind of Granada and Sporting.
Andres Iniesta will be out for six to eight weeks, which may not sound like good news, but is actually great news. The way his knee jerked backwards and the way he called for assistance immediately had everyone fearing the worse.
Results: Osasuna 1–2 Betis, Espanyol 3–3 Eibar, Valencia 2–3 Barcelona, Real Sociedad 3–0 Alavés, Granada 0–0 Sporting, Celta 4–1 Deportivo, Sevilla 1–0 Atlético, Villarreal 2–1 Las Palmas, Málaga 4–0 Leganés, Real Madrid 2–1 Athletic.
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