Granada's fury at their defeat was inexcusable but the league organisers do not help ease the concerns of suspicious minds
Noé Pamarot put it best. "Not even Hitchcock could have dreamed up a scene like this," the Granada centre-back said. A series of interlocking stories came to a head, building to a violent climax late on a Saturday night only to leave everyone hanging on a little longer. There's one more, dramatic chapter to come yet: the season finale on Sunday night. A bitter battle for survival. Terror, suspense, paranoia; conspiracy and accusation. Whistle blowers, money and power. Suitcases full of cash. Suspicious minds and suspicious characters. And in the middle of it all, a man. A man in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
Carlos Clos Gómez, the referee, could feel them closing in. When he blew the final whistle on Granada v Real Madrid, it should have been the end. Instead it was just the beginning. Suddenly, he was surrounded by furious footballers. Abel Resino, the Granada coach, sprinted from the bench holding his head, never more Tommy Lee Jones than he was now, and piled into the crowd, grabbing at his players, tearing them apart and throwing them angrily to one side. But it was too late; the pursuit was in full flow. He could not stop them. Granada's Moisés Hurtado called Clos Gómez a thief. Team-mate Guilherme Siqueira called him a sinverguenza: brass necked, shameless.
Out came the red card. Once. Twice. It was no deterrent. As the crowd grew bigger and angrier, the Granada winger Dani Benítez threw a bottle at the referee. It flew, almost in slow motion, past the crowd and hit him in the face. Benítez turned away, escaping the scene. But the linesman saw him and made a run for it, making sure he took down his number. The referee backed off, the pack kept pursuing. Riot police came across and, sheltering him under their shields, ushered him into the sanctuary of the tunnel. Only it was no sanctuary. Once there, Siqueira called him a son of a bitch. The club's delegate, Pedro Navarro, insulted him too. Another Granada player, Alex Geijo told him he had "fucked our entire season."
That, at least, is what he said according to the referee's report. It took a little longer than normal for the report to emerge because the internet connection in his dressing room was cut. So was the hot water. He phoned through the basics; three hours later, from the hotel, he sent the rest. The door to the dressing room was locked but someone was knocking at the door. Kicking at it, repeatedly. Shouting. It was Granada's goalkeeping coach. Eventually, he broke the lock. When he encountered the match day delegate, he spat: "you're dead, you son of a bitch."
The referee couldn't get a connection; reporters could. Soon, the match report was up on Granada's website. "Granada couldn't do it against 12 men," ran the headline. The referee, it said, had been "pernicious"; this was "another lamentable display from Clos Gómez." Up in the director's box, the club's president, Quique Pina, insisted: "the referee can go back to [his home town] happy and they'll build a statue for him." Showered and changed now, presumably calmer, Hurtado sought him out once more. More insults, more accusations. "They sent him here to rob us," Hurtado told the media.
So what exactly did Clos Gómez do? Well, that's the thing. It's hard to avoid the simple answer: he got it right. He gave Madrid a penalty, which was as correct as it was cretinous – Hurtado dragged Cristiano Ronaldo round the waist and tumbled to the ground on top of him, however much both players pushed and however much Hurtado tried to claim that the Portuguese had provoked and invented the whole thing. And he blew the final whistle when time was up. The fact that Granada were not allowed to take the corner, their final chance to get a goal, made it sting, but time had gone. It was not him who gave Madrid the penalty that led to the equaliser, it was Hurtado, and it was not him who gave Madrid their second goal either. It was, rather, an own goal from David Cortés. In the 93rd minute.
Finally back at home, on the television station La Sexta, Benítez was repentant. "I lost my head," he said. "I went to the referee's dressing room to say sorry but he was locked in and did not want to open the door." When he was asked what he would say to the referee now, Benítez replied: "sorry … but I would also ask him to understand." We have been, he added, "playing for our lives all year long."
"We had it all in our hands and it all got thrown away," said Resino, "sometimes the players are so tense, there is so much pressure that it is hard to control themselves."
Granada had waited 35 years to return to the top flight and it looked like they would survive. It was the penultimate game of the season and they had started the night virtually safe: 42 points put them five points off the relegation zone, with Sporting on 34, Zaragoza on 37, Rayo on 40 and Villarreal on 41. Sure, they were playing Real Madrid, but they were playing a hungover Real Madrid. And after five minutes, they were 1-0 up, Franco Jara dashing all the way through. Safety was within touching distance. Better still, four minutes later, Zaragoza were 1-0 down against Racing Santander. Soon, Rayo were trailing to Sevilla. And there was no sign of a goal from Villarreal. Sporting were beating Betis, but they could not catch Granada anyway.
Results shifted: Rayo lost 5-2 and watched as absolutely everything else went against them too. Zaragoza were all over Racing. An equaliser came quickly (after just 11 minutes); with chance after chance going begging, the winner took an age. Eventually Angel Lafita got it in the 79th minute. Zaragoza 2-1 Racing. Amazingly, Zaragoza had a chance: when Manolo Jiménez went into the press conference after the game, he was given a round of applause. His mind was cast back to his days as a player, days when he played alongside the Scot Ted McMinn. "For a minute there thought Lafita was Ramón Vázquez or Postner," he said.
Still, Granada looked safe. Sporting had 37 points, Zaragoza 40, Rayo 40, Villarreal 42 and Granada 45. At almost exactly the same time as Zaragoza got the winner, though, the penalty was given against Granada. It was the 80th minute. Ronaldo scored. Still, Granada were safe. Sporting had 37 points, Zaragoza 40, Rayo 40, Villarreal 42 and Granada 43. Then Valencia scored; this was even better. Sporting 37, Zaragoza 40, Rayo 40, Villarreal 41, Granada 43. But then Cortés's awful own goal put them on edge once more: Sporting 37, Zaragoza 40, Rayo 40, Villarreal 41, Granada 42. Next week, Granada face Rayo, Sporting travel to Málaga and Zaragoza take on nothing-to-play-for Getafe. "There's still a game left," Jiménez insisted, but no one doubts that they will win.
Least of all the Granada president, Quique Pina – and that was the murky backdrop to the whole sorry scenario. Zaragoza have won four of their last five, eight of their last 10. And as for all that talk about Jimenez's bollocks, Pina thinks it is all bollocks. He says there is something fishy going on. In the buildup to this weekend's games he had already complained about a club president with an "unusual surname" – Agapito Iglesias, the Zaragoza president. There were five teams implicated in the battle to avoid the two relegation places and there still are. But Granada's fate depends mostly on whether or not Zaragoza catch them. After Saturday night's game, Pina was asked if he believed in the honesty of the competition. His reply was succinct: "not much." He continued: "I do not trust in the limpieza [literally, cleanness] of a director who I do not see as clean and who many of us in the game know has not got good intentions."
If the tension and anxiety, the edginess provoked by suspicions about their greatest rivals to fight off relegation, explained the reaction in part it did not tell the whole story. Clos Gómez is also the referee whose assistant was hit by an umbrella at Granada in November – something Pina was keen to point out – but he was guilty of one crime above all: never mind the fact that his decisions had been correct, he is from Zaragoza, hence Pina's remark about building him a statue.
"That," admitted Benítez, "was in my head – and all sorts of things go through your mind." All week, they had been chewing on that fact; on Saturday night it exploded. "It is a disgrace that a referee from Zaragoza takes charge of our game," said Roberto the goalkeeper. Benítez said he had been told that, worse still, Clos Gómez's family are season-ticket holders at Zaragoza. "It is a disgrace that a referee from Zaragoza was in charge," said the midfielder Mikel Rico, "with a referee from Granada, Zaragoza would not have won."
There is no way of knowing that of course, and the presumption of guilt – so easily adopted, so lightly exclaimed, so often a central plank in Spanish football, where there are ludicrous conspiracies at every turn – does incalculable damage to the sport. Why would a granadino referee necessarily ensure that Zaragoza did not win? And, but for their own mistakes Granada would have won anyway, even with a zaragozano in charge. Their mistakes cost them on Saturday and might cost them next week too: when they play Rayo for survival, they will be without Hurtado and Siqueira, while bottle-throwing Benítez faces a ban that could be as long as six months. Abel Resino, the one man to have come out of this with his dignity enhanced, noted: "We're damaging ourselves."
And yet they did have a point. Sending a referee from Zaragoza to referee this game was asking for trouble, another example of a sad, inescapable reality: Spanish football is played by geniuses and run by idiots. Another mistake from footballing authorities who, far from protecting and promoting the game, damage it at every turn. It is not enough for Caesar's wife to be above suspicion, she must appear to be above suspicion too. A referee's home city should not matter but in an atmosphere of accusations and distrust it does. In Spain, sadly, it does. The referees' committee made it far too easy for the usual discourse to emerge yet again.
At the end of every season, the talk begins: the maletíntakes centre stage. A suitcase here, a suitcase there; results for sale. Within the game, many are convinced it happens. The vice-president of the league told the newspaper AS that there might be seven or eight games a season subject to sale. But no one ever provides any evidence and when they do – it is not so long ago that newspapers published incriminating recorded conversations of games for sale in the race for First Division promotion – nothing happens. No real investigations are launched; countless unsubtle hints are. The suspicion, the stink, clings to everyone. Accusations are made with impunity and the more accusations are made, the more people become convinced. In a sense, the more it becomes justified too. Well, everyone does it. There may be something going on – given what is at stake and the people involved, it might even be naive to assume that everything is above board – but the ease with which accusations are made shows an alarming irresponsibility. "When the river makes a noise, it is because there is water in it," said the Rayo president, "and right now it is making a lot of noise."
That suggestion, that possibility, that nagging doubt, eats away at everything. If sport does not have honesty, it has nothing. All that heroism, all that drama, all that effort, has an asterix by it. *Yes, but. What if. No one is presumed innocent. There is no smoke without fire, they say. What there is, is a smoke screen.
There is still another week to go. Granada could still survive. They should still survive: they need only a point and even a defeat could be enough. They will have to do it without three of their players. If they do not, they now have their excuse even though it is no excuse. This weekend, the referee got it right. Clos Gómez did not fuck Granada's entire season. If any one did, Granada did.
Results and talking points
Zaragoza 2-1 Racing, Athletic 0-0 Getafe, Mallorca 1-0 Levante, Granada 1-2 Madrid, Sevilla 5-2 Rayo, Barcelona 4-0 Espanyol, Sporting 2-1 Betis, Atlético 2-1 Málaga, Valencia 1-0 Villarreal, Osasuna 1-0 Real Sociedad
• Pep Guardiola's emotional farewell was not the only one this weekend. Goodbye, too, to the classiest player anyone can remember: Fredi Kanouté played his last game at the Sánchez Pizjuán … and marked the occasion with a goal. The shirt he wore underneath said simply: thanks.
• Pichichi or league? A season later, the roles are reversed and so are the arguments. Leo Messi added four more goals which, like Ronaldo's rush last season, have little value in terms of the league but a huge value in terms of the top scorer award. He is now on an astonishing 50 league goals for the season. Ronaldo is on a not-much-less-incredible 45.
That final-day scenario then …
Relegation: Granada 42; Villarreal 41; Rayo 40; Zaragoza 40; Sporting 37.
• Rayo and Granada face each other, Villarreal go to Champions League-chasing Atlético, Zaragoza travel to nothing-to play-for Getafe and Sporting go to Malaga, who are also chasing a Champions League.
• If Sporting, Rayo and Zaragoza all end on 40 points, Sporting survive. If Rayo, Zaragoza and Villarreal end on 41 points. Rayo go down. If Rayo and Villarreal end on 41 points, Rayo go down. If Villarreal and Zaragoza both end on 41 points, Villarreal go down. If Rayo and Zaragoza both end on 41 points, Zaragoza go down. If there is tie on 42 points between Granada and Villarreal, Granada go down.
Europe, Champions League: Valencia are third. So, the fight for fourth, fifth and sixth – Malaga 55, Atlético 53, Mallorca (amazingly) 52, Levante 52, Osasuna 51, Athletic 49, Sevilla 49.
Fixtures: Levante-Athletic, Real Madrid-Mallorca, Espanyol-Sevilla, Malaga-Sporting, Villarreal-Atlético, Racing-Osasuna.
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