Two minutes and 26 seconds. That’s what Espanyol needed to score two goals in added time (minutes 97 and 99) in Eibar and come back from a game that they had lost and that, furthermore, they had deserved to lose. But if miracles exist, one occurred yesterday in Ipurua, in an ending in the history of the league (it is the latest comeback to win in professional football in Spain) that could represent a turning point in the season. The result, beyond infusing trucks of self-esteem into the squad and the fans, allows the Perico team to climb back into the direct promotion positions, something that has not happened since the twelfth day of the championship, still with Luis García on the bench.
Furthermore, it reinforces the figure of Ramis, whose continuity once again seemed in question. Salvi and Lazo’s goals transformed the usual torment into absolute ecstasy. Before, a new martyrdom had been experienced that pointed to certain defeat as a destiny. Because Espanyol replicated in Eibar its usual refusal to be the protagonist in the match until its rival passed over it with sufficiency.
The first half was very poor and cries from the fans appeared in Eibar asking for Ramis’ resignation. Fourteen days ago Luis García was dismissed after tying against Eibar in the Stage Front with a goal in added time. Just fourteen games later, Espanyol gave the Basque team its medicine.
Ramis gave continuity to the eleven that beat Mirandés. He mistakenly understood that it was similar to play in the Stage Front against a team full of youth than against the second placed team, which had not lost in Ipurua in the last eleven games. He did not protect his midfield, but rather weakened it by keeping Aguado without a third midfielder to balance the team in defense and help in construction. In his absence, Espanyol was a team that struggled at the back and lacked the ability to progress wisely from behind.
Eibar little by little took over the game. Etxeberria’s men were capable of triangulating with precision, of having depth and the only thing that did not condemn Espanyol for many minutes was the lack of success of the locals. Stoichkov and Bautista warned with two shots. And when the intermission approached, Pere Milla lost a ball in the center of the field, Sergi Gómez lost the mark with Bautista, and when he received it in the area, he only had to cut back to the center back and place the ball to one side in front of Pacheco. Espanyol played with fire once again by giving up the ball in search of defensive security that was nothing more than a mirage.
Urged by the score against, Espanyol took a step forward in the second act. But the rush made disorder appear. Eibar took advantage of it to harass Pacheco. First Stoichkov hit the post and then Nolaskoain scored the second goal with a shot from the edge of the area after a poor delivery from Braithwaite. The parakeet team went ahead and Jofre had a great chance in a one-on-one with Luca, before Salvi caused a penalty that allowed the Danish striker to reduce the gap and score his seventeenth goal this season.
Eibar had gone eleven games without losing at home. But in two minutes not to be forgotten, first Salvi, with a cross shot that sneaked into the goal from outside the area, and then Lazo with a volley with time already up, they unleashed the madness. Espanyol, lacking the football necessary to win, showed ambition and mentality to achieve it in a final that should serve to maintain a more positive inertia.
