Sevilla set up La Liga title race for the ages on day the clock stopped
The scene could have come straight from Hackney Marshes or Donkey Lane, a portrait of a thousand pitches in a thousand places and any given Sunday league; instead, it came from the Sánchez Pizjuán and what would soon become the best league of all, if it wasn’t already: a title race like no other. You’ve seen it before, probably been it before, just not at this level. Twenty-one men waited while one late arrival sat barefoot on the touchline, half-changed, boots and shinnies on the grass beside him as he frantically pulled on his socks. Some laughed, others shook their heads. People tapped at their watches. Hurry up. And then at last Marcos Acuña ran on and they could start.
Again.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said the Granada manager, Diego Martínez, a man who has seen plenty, and nor had anyone else.
There were 26 seconds left when Roberto Soldado smashed in the penalty that gave Granada hope, the slightest chance of taking something from Seville and staying in the race for the final European place they have dignified this year; an opportunity, too, to prevent Sevilla reaching an objective set at the start of the season and becoming happily obsolete. Twentysix seconds and added time, that is. Which, the board said, would be four minutes. At 2-1 down, Granada sent the centre-back Germán Sánchez up. On the touchline Sevilla’s coach, Julen Lopetegui, screamed, feet thumping like a toddler having a tantrum, tension rising until the final whistle put an end to it.
Except that it didn’t, not yet, and it wasn’t final. Some players embraced and went off, down the tunnel and up the stands to the makeshift dressing rooms in the passageways of the stadium. Others went to the referee, wondering where all the time had gone. They couldn’t see the clock – everywhere stadiums stop at 90.00, because fans and footballers can’t be trusted to know the time, when it turns out it’s the referees that can’t – but they knew something was up. They could see it in the assistant referee’s face, for a start. “Awkward,” Granada’s Víctor Díaz called it. They had noticed him nervously putting his hand up then down again, like a man wondering whether to tell the boss his flies were undone.
They were right too: the final whistle had gone bang on 93.00, a minute taken from them. Granada’s players surrounded the referee, Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea, who showed them his watch, definitive proof of something. “That’s it,” he said, waving them away, but it wasn’t. On Spanish television, the co-commentator Andrés Palop, a former Sevilla goalkeeper, said goodbye then hello again. The assistant referee eventually approached, shifting slightly, knowing he had been rumbled. Erm, um. The fourth official had a word: “Ricci, listen, trust me,” he seemed to say. And then Ricci blew his whistle, raising a single finger. Get them back out, he said.
Dimitri Foulquier dashed back, pulling his shirt over his head again. Rui Silva put his gloves back on. At the back of the stand, Sevilla’s Fernando and Granada’s Luis Suárez had swapped shirts and had to swap them back. Fernando came down the stairs barechested, waving his arms about and shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. Others were nowhere to be seen. Ivan Rakitic was on the touchline but most his teammates had gone, only Granada players out now and not even all of them. The referee was appealing for the delegate to go and find the footballers.
The minutes passed: two, three, four. Jules Koundé reappeared with a face on. “We’ll replay the whole game if you like,” he tweeted later. Rakitic and Jorge Molina stood laughing, what a joke this is. Soldado was cracking up. Lopetegui, nervous again, was busy demanding play be restarted with Sevilla in possession. Someone had rescued Acuña from the dressing room and provided him with a new pair of socks and some tape.
He needed them. When at last he was ready, the referee signalled a minute. The referee, the delegate, the coaches, even Martínez: all of them stood there, genuinely synchronising watches, like a spy novel, a heist movie, some crime caper, ready to set the clock running. Acuña too, heading up the wing and into the corner, trying to waste what little time there was. Everyone was thinking the same thing: imagine if Granada actually go and score now. But they didn’t – the momentum had gone, Díaz noted – and eventually, with the clock at 94.05, eight minutes and 52 seconds late, the final final whistle went.
Lopetegui clenched his fists and dashed down the stairs, smiling now.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, but you learn something new every day,” the Sevilla winger Lucas Ocampos said. The referee’s report declared it a “stopwatch error”. “He said his watch had stopped,” Díaz said. “But there’s no point going over it any more.” The explanation didn’t make any sense: how would a stopped watch make him blow up early? Ultimately, no harm had been done – although it is worth reflecting on the risks had there been 43,000 people in the Pizjuán – and no results had changed. Lopetegui called it “anecdotal”, which it was now, even if it was also unique. And, let’s face it, pretty funny, a story to tell, which is the point of, well, everything really. As Enrique Ballester wrote this week: “I’ve forgotten a thousand goals, but not the ridiculous scenes.”
Beyond the show and the silliness there was something more significant, though – even if not all of Sevilla’s players realised it and even if the rest are already over it. At the end of the game, Suso was told Sevilla had qualified for the Champions League with five games still to go. “Really? It’s done? Seriously?” he replied. “Well, I’m delighted.”
It is a huge achievement, but there is more, or at least there might be. Just take a look at the league table this morning, the flags along the roof at Villarreal and the Pizjuán.
On Saturday Real Betis became the first team to go to Real Madrid and not concede for four consecutive seasons, getting a 0-0 draw at Valdebebas that might even have been a victory with better finishing from Diego Laínez, Borja Iglesias and Guido Rodríguez. “I’m still thinking about that,” Guido admitted afterwards. In Sunday’s 4.15pm kick-off, Barcelona went behind but beat Villarreal 2-1 at the Cerámica with Antoine Griezmann scoring twice, the first a gorgeous chip over Sergio Asenjo, who had produced perhaps the save of the season to deny Frenkie De Jong just before. At 6.30pm, Sevilla eventually defeated Granada, Ocampos and Rakitic scoring, Papu Gómez producing his best performance since joining. And then at 9pm, Atlético had thrown away the first half against Athletic, Diego Simeone said, and then recovered to equalise only to let in an 86th-minute Athletic winner.
All of which left the top of the league looking like this:
Pretty super.
Oh, and in two weeks’ time it’s Barcelona-Atlético and Real Madrid-Sevilla.
There hasn’t been a title race this tight, this close, since 2006-07, the most absurd, implausible league of them all. Mathematically, there hasn’t been in almost 50 years: four teams this close, this late. Barcelona have a game in hand, which they play on Thursday night. They and Atlético have their destinies in their own hands – win every game and they are champions. But Madrid are still there, and so are Sevilla. Lopetegui’s team weren’t even invited to be part of the Super League – although the threat made to Atlético was: either you come on board or we ask Sevilla – and they weren’t invited to be part of this league title race, either, the amount they take from TV rights less than half the shares of Madrid and Barcelona, the sports daily AS calculating their budget at €200m against €733m for Barcelona, €650m for Madrid, and €400m for Atlético, but there they are.
And there Spain is too, so much better for them, for their rebellion. Sevilla may not win the league; you may say they probably won’t either. This is already historic, on course for their best
season ever. “The players deserve huge credit,” Lopetegui said, and he was right. But they have won five games in a row, seven of the last eight and have earned the right to compete for it, fight for it, and they’re not going to stop there. No false modesty, no holding back, no reason to either. Just ambition, one Sunday at a time.
Asked what Champions League qualification means on the day the clock stopped but they did not, Ocampos shot back: “Muchísimo. That’s the club’s first objective, but we have five ‘finals’ left now and we’re going to give everything.” There was a hint of surprise in the follow-up question – do you dream of winning the league, then? – and the response was every bit as rapid. “Obviously,” Ocampos said, delivering a timely message. “It won’t be easy but our enthusiasm, our hope, is intact,” he said. “The dressing room believes. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be footballers.”
Full La Liga table