Rayo Vallecano and Granada survived but Villarreal were relegated on a dramatic end to La Liga
The pitch invasion happened seconds before the pitch invasion happened. That, at least, is the way it looked. All over the place people were running and they were running all over the place. Caught in a collective madness, no logic to where they were heading, destination unknown, emotions out of control. The people at the edge of the pitch were on the pitch, screaming and shouting and shaking, holding on to each other, tears welling up in their eyes. Fans hung over the barriers and practically over the crossbar. Yet there were still 30 seconds left. Thirty seconds left on the final day. It was time. Throw your goalkeeper forward time. Rayo were in the relegation zone. They had been there just 33 minutes all season, these 33 minutes, ever since Zaragoza scored in Getafe. Now they were going to stay there. Their timing couldn't have been worse. They were going down.
Rayo 0 Granada 0 in Vallecas. For the last 32 minutes, it had been kill or be killed: both came up from the Second Division last summer, Rayo had been away for a decade, Granada for three of them. One of them was going back again. In the last 30 seconds that had changed with a goal 401 kilometres away, but amid the tension, the noise and the desperation, few realised that they could both survive. Raúl Tamudo had missed a sitter for Rayo; a minute later, Jara had done the same for Granada. Now Rayo had a minute and a half to save the earth. David Cobeño went up for a corner. The trouble with sending your goalkeeper forward is that if you don't score you have to send him back again. And so it was that in the 92nd minute, the very last seconds of the very last game, everyone knew that they had to run, and run like mad, but no one knew quite where to.
Seen from above, it appeared completely at random. Like someone had dropped a bomb into the middle of the pitch, sending everyone fleeing in different directions. The corner was cleared: Cobeño panicked and started sprinting back towards his own unguarded goal. Some team-mates went with him. Others went in the opposite direction; some right, some left, some up the pitch, some down. Granada's players pursued, others protected. Desperate shouts from the touchline: Get back! Go forward! The ball was loose. Then it wasn't. Some were dashing into the area, others dashing out of it. A shot, a rebound, through the defender's legs, Michu stretching, the goalkeeper stretching, the ball off the bar, on the line. Tamudo there, a header. The ball in the net. It's still moving when the first invasion starts; match and mayhem, merged seamlessly. Safety.
The timing couldn't have been worse? The timing couldn't have been better.
Michu runs one way, Tamudo the other. Staff and subs, right there, pile in. The bench emptying, heading their way. The crowd on the pitch, the coach in the crowd. Shirts off. José Ramón Sandoval climbing over the barrier to embrace supporters, supporters climbing over barriers to embrace the players. That pile of bodies growing. No time for more. Granada to kick off. No time to take it. No need either. A message: Atlético have scored, you're safe too. The final whistle goes. And they run on. Thousands of them. Michu sprints towards the goal again, skidding to his knees, leaping to his feet. A fan skids in on his knees, sliding in on the blind side, and, without warning, pulls Michu's shorts down. Michu looks down to see a beast of a man down at his ankles, tugging on the nylon, looking up at him longingly. He has to fight for his right to stay dressed. Partly dressed, anyway.
Diego Costa is hoisted on shoulders wearing just his pants, balls bouncing against the back of a bald bloke's bonce. Michu is hanging off the bar, top off, screaming. It is his Michu face , as the coach puts it, the picture of Rayo . The boys from the barrio are back from the brink. Javi Fuego is back and so are the results. After nine defeats in their last 10, watching relegation slide into view, they have won at last. "My dad died suddenly when I was 17, his heart failed," says Sandoval. "But if it hasn't tonight, my heart will never break." They're letting off fireworks by the Fuente de Vallecas, red smoke everywhere. On the Vallecas pitch Granada fans are celebrating, too. Only one of them could survive, they thought. But both of them did.
They're not the only ones celebrating. Fourteen kilometres south, Maurizio Lanzaro is getting his hair shaved off – on the pitch. It's time to fulfil those promises. More than 10,000 Zaragoza fans are packed into Getafe's Coliseum – more Zaragoza fans than there have been Getafe fans all season – to see their team's great escape. "Jiménez, Jiménez, what balls you have!" they chant. The coach who walked out of a press conference with his team 12 points from safety, saying he felt "ashamed", has led them to safety with an implausible eight wins in the last 11. Too implausible, some say.
In Málaga, they've reached the Champions League for the first time, their project baring fruit at the first attempt ; fans are singing in joy and commiseration, chanting the name of their defeated opponents, now-relegated Sporting Gijón.
In Valencia, Levante – Levante! – have claimed a European place for the first time. Dethroned in October, the Expendables just refused to go away: this is a miracle, the story of the season. Raimón, the groundsman with the fabulously ramshackle mini-museum and crates of beer under the main stand , can collect an altogether different level of memorabilia now. There is singing and dancing and drinking. Noise, lots of noise.
And in Vila-Real there is silence.
The final day in Spain did not have the non-stop drama it might have hoped for; Sporting went down, Málaga got the final Champions League place and Zaragoza beat Getafe to survive. Just as everyone expected. It happened early, too: Sporting were losing to Málaga four minutes into the second half and Zaragoza had their goal eight minutes later. After that, nothing changed. Zaragoza's opponents had been down to 10 men since the 24th minute; now they were down to nine. They would eventually be down to eight. Results did not swing back and forth. In that running relegation points chart, drawn up ready to make sense of the twisting fates, only four columns were needed. But those stories did eventually become intertwined. And if the previous 89 minutes were predictable, the last three were impossible.
It is only six years since Villarreal were a penalty away from a European Cup final and at the start of this season they were a Champions League team. Bayern Munich and Manchester City visited the Madrigal this season; next season Huesca and Sabadell will. In the 89th minute, Villarreal were safe. Really safe. It would take two goals in two different stadiums for them to go down. A draw would be enough; a defeat would be enough, so long as Rayo didn't score. There was no way both things would happen. After all, Villarreal's opponents, Atlético Madrid, knew that Málaga were winning – that small hope of a Champions League place had gone and taken the motivation with it. But then it happened. Ramadel Falcao scored in the 89th minute. The president, Fernando Roig, silently stood up and left the directors' box, heading down the stairs. He could take no more but his team were still safe; by the time he reached the bottom they were not.
His team had conceded twice in barely two minutes: the one they conceded to Atlético on the east coast and the one Granada conceded to Rayo to the east of Madrid. Villarreal were down; so, immediately, were Villarreal B. Two teams relegated for the price of one. As Roig stood on the pitch, the architect of Villarreal's most successful spell ever, the fans stood sadly to applaud. Outside, a handful of supporters gathered to insult the players, "mercenaries not fit to wear the shirt". Down in the tunnel, José Manuel Llaneza, the sporting director, was confronting Diego Godín, the Atlético player who was kicked out of Villarreal for hitting the town the night before a game.
"It's hard to explain," said the coach Miguel-Angel Lotina, but he was about to have a go. Dark thoughts troubled him. "Football has been cruel to Villarreal. What has happened in the last three or four years in the First Division is worrying. One day, I imagine it will all come out, but football is in grave danger." At the final whistle, the midfielder Angel had talked about "strange things … that everyone knows but no one can denounce". The maletín again. There was, though, a different discourse from Marcos Senna; in glasses, a soft voice and a quiet, firm dignity, politely but persistently refusing to be dragged into a controversy, he insisted it was nobody's fault but theirs. "We failed," he said, "and that's it. We only had to rely on ourselves. A draw was enough and we didn't get it. There is no excuse."
Villarreal have been through three coaches this season; as many as they had in the previous seven seasons. Financial reality has bitten and that perfect ecosystem has collapsed. Their first coach was sacked largely because his relationship with the players was so edgy, the second arrived because he was cheap and left because he wasn't very good, and the third has now been relegated in two successive seasons, having gone down with Depor last year . The planning has been poor; when Villarreal sold Santi Cazorla, Senna said that he felt like they had cut a finger off. Nine months later, Cazorla has reached the Champions League with Málaga; Villarreal are down. Villarreal made €19m on Cazorla; they spent €17m of that on Cristián Zapata, Jonathan de Guzmán and Javier Camuñas. None have performed. Giuseppe Rossi has had two knee ligament injuries and missed virtually the whole season, Nilmar has missed some games and disappeared from others.
In the final weeks, Villarreal passed up chance after chance to clinch survival, paying for over-caution, inviting trouble. Waiting for the whistle was waiting to be hit. Bad luck only goes so far in explaining failure. Falcao scored in the 89th minute, costing them a draw that would have kept them safe. Last week, Jonas scored in the 92nd minute costing them a draw that would have kept them safe and provoking a confrontation because Valencia, those dirty cheats, had tried to win when they had nothing to play for – a confrontation that speaks volumes about what's wrong with Spanish football. Two weeks before that, a Raúl García equaliser in the 72nd minute cost them a victory, the week before that Carlos Vela scored an 87th‑minute equaliser for Real Sociedad and the week before that Lautaro Acosta's 93rd‑minute equaliser cost them against Racing Santander. In March they lost to Getafe, Levante and Zaragoza: in all three games they conceded late on – in the 72nd, 92nd and 85th and 93rd minutes respectively.
Those should not have happened; this definitely should not. This was more of the same, only worse. On Sunday night, a late goal in Vila-Real and an even later goal in Vallecas kept Rayo up and sent Villarreal down. As the Rayo players celebrated, the chant went up: "El Rayo es de primera." Rayo are a first‑division team. Twelve years later, Villarreal are not.
Results Betis 2-2 Barcelona; Real Sociedad 1-0 Valencia; Racing 2-4 Osasuna; Villarreal 0-1 Atlético; Málaga 1-0 Sporting; Madrid 4-1 Mallorca; Rayo 1-0 Granada; Espanyol 1-1 Sevilla; Levante 3-0 Athletic; Getafe 0-2 Zaragoza
Champions Madrid
Champions League Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Málaga
Europa League Atlético, Levante, Athletic (cup finalists)
Relegated Racing, Sporting, Villarreal
Top scorer Messi
Best goalkeeper Valdés
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
