Ivan Rakitic had the ball in his hands and Sevilla’s fate in them too, or at least that’s how it felt. On moments like this titles turn, so it goes. They had spent the last two months hanging in there, the team still standing even as players were falling, clinging on for a chance like this. But time was running out on the first day of the rest of their season, the opportunity they had waited for untaken and slipping away again. Until suddenly, almost out of nothing, it was given back. All they now had to do was score a last-minute penalty and they really would be in the race for La Liga.
Yeah, all. And no, they didn’t.
On Saturday night Rakitic’s injury-time spot kick was saved by the Osasuna goalkeeper Sergio Herrera to see out a 0-0 draw and 24 hours later Real Madrid defeated Granada 1-0, the finest of margins bringing the greatest of changes and, all over Spain, the most definitive of judgments: from a point behind and Game On to six points off and Game Over. Sevilla left Pamplona with a feeling of what might have been. “We’re sad,” coach Julen Lopetegui said. This, after all, had been the moment that might decide how far his side could go. Yet there are still 15 weeks left and that they had come this far said something, reason enough to believe it could still be.
Defeated just twice all season, Sevilla are unbeaten in nine since a 2-1 loss at the Bernabéu in November: a game they led, dominated for 70 minutes and lost in the 88th, one that had felt oddly inevitable somehow, a missed opportunity that was sort of predictable, another almost but not quite. But they had followed it by beating Villarreal, Athletic and Atlético in a row, a last-minute Lucas Ocampos goal finally seeing off Diego Simeone’s team, before drawing 1-1 with Barcelona, and beating Cádiz and Getafe.
On the face of it, it hadn’t always been that impressive, a hint of yeah but about them; contradictory though it sounds, there was a sense of Sevilla playing within themselves and yet also permanently on edge. Four of those five wins were 1-0, the other 2-1. And just as that put them back within touching distance, it evaded them again with two consecutive draws. There’s nothing really wrong with finishing 1-1 with Valencia and 2-2 with Celta, but both were matches they might have won – against Valencia they scored early and wasted chances to make it safe, against Celta they came back from 2-0 down and then hit the post – and both felt like opportunities lost, like they suffer vertigo when the top is in sight, like something’s missing.
A lot has been missing. And the good news, the thing that really was impressive, was that the league hadn’t already gone, that Sevilla were still close enough for a challenge to remain possible. Jesús Navas has been able to start just eight league games all season; Suso and En Nesyri, six; Érik Lamela, five. They had spent two months with absences in double figures every week, those that were able to play pretty much having to play every game. And as soon as En Nesyri was fit again, he was off to the Africa Cup of Nations. Goalkeeper Yassine Bono was joining him, as was Munir.
This weekend they were back and others came with them, giving this the feel of a fresh beginning in which they were ready to step up. In the winter window Sevilla signed Anthony Martial and Tecatito Corona, but just as important as what they had done was what they had not done: like with Jules Koundé in the summer, they had not sold Diego Carlos, the club that always lets go holding on. That seemed like a statement, like they knew this season was an opportunity that might not be back again; although they wouldn’t say so publicly, this was a league they could compete for.
“Fans keep telling us ‘you have to catch Madrid’,” Rakitic admitted last week and it coincided with the first real hint that Madrid’s lead needn’t be unassailable: held by Cádiz, beaten by Getafe, needing a late comeback to draw with Elche, Madrid had won two from five in La Liga and had just been knocked out of the Cup by Athletic, vulnerability revealed. Karim Benzema was injured, others were tired, and PSG awaited round the corner. Beat Osasuna and Sevilla would be just one point behind, piling the pressure on a team in which cracks were at last appearing.
Trouble was, it was happening again. Fernando, quietly going about being the best deep midfielder in Spain, was out. Ocampos got injured in the warm-up. Gonzalo Montiel, returning from international duty with Argentina, was forced off after six minutes. Koundé wasn’t fit enough to start, not introduced until the 58th minute. The same went for Papu Gómez. And they only went on because there was no choice.
If Osasuna were the better side and Sevilla had seemed happy enough to let the first half go by, trusting that chances would present themselves and time was on their side – a recurring theme this season – it was slipping away from them. There had been very little from Martial on the left – “he has not played much and bit by bit has to integrate,” Lopetegui said afterwards – and Sevilla had to force this. But while they had the ball, although their ability to bring it out impressed, much as they quickened the tempo and sharpened their intent, and despite Osasuna’s manager admitting his team felt their strength sap away, they created little.
Getafe 3-0 Levante, Osasuna 0-0 Sevilla, Celta Vigo 2-0 Rayo Vallecano, Real Mallorca 2-1 Cádiz, Elche 3-1 Alavés, Real Madrid 1-0 Granada, Real Betis 0-2 Villarreal, Barcelona 4-2 Atlético Madrid, Valencia 0-0 Real Sociedad
Another chance seemed to be escaping them, which is when it really did. There were 29 seconds left when another cross was swung in from the left and Koundé went down, challenged by Manu Sánchez. At first Valentín Pizarro Gómez ignored it but a voice came from the VAR room and so he stopped, listened and eventually set off to take a look, studiously ignoring the crowd of players shepherding him to the sideline with helpful suggestions. There, he saw a swipe of Sánchez’s foot and contact with Koundé’s boot. It wasn’t much, but with 91.30 on the clock, it was enough for him to draw a telly with his fingers and point to the spot, where Rakitic was waiting.
The league was alive, Sevilla had been saved.
They were in their captain’s hands now, which was about the best place they could be. The nearest thing to a sevillano in the team, the man who fell in love on his first night in the city, meeting his wife to be in a hotel 50 metres from the Sánchez Pizjuán, the player who went away and insisted on coming back again, his return met with rejoicing. The first foreign captain there since Diego Maradona, he is the player who proudly tells the story of his wife’s grandfather refusing to take off his Sevilla watch, dying with it on. He tells the story too of his mother-in-law sending him a text after he had missed a penalty against Rayo a decade ago, saying: “The dog takes them better than you do.” But he’s also the man who had not missed one in eight years.
Since then, Rakitic had taken nine and scored them all. During normal time that is: he had also become the first player to twice score the winning penalty in World Cup shoot-outs: his spot-kicks took Croatia to the quarters and the semis in Russia, displaying nerves of steel. As for the last time he had taken one in La Liga, he had coolly rolled in a late penalty at Real Madrid on a wild weekend, keeping alive their hopes of winning the title with three games to go. He had been here before, in other words, no one better to rely on to score now to take them even closer.
Ivan Rakitić misses a stoppage time penalty! 😱
— Premier Sports (@PremierSportsTV) February 5, 2022
A massive moment in the title race as Sevilla fall to a third straight draw after Sergio Herrera's save 😬 pic.twitter.com/S0fpi6S2AO
This really was a new start; for all their problems they’d got to here somehow, now they could begin. No, it hadn’t all come to this, and there are still four months left, but it felt that way; like belief depended on this ball hitting the net, which is why it felt so bad when it didn’t. “This is the penalty that could decide the title!” shouted the commentator on one radio station. On the bench, Lopetegui sat alone, rubbing his face, blinking rapidly. Marcos Acuña couldn’t look, standing near the centre circle facing the other way. Rakitic gazed at the ball. One shot to have a shot. He hit it left, but Herrera dived to saved, leaping up to block the rebound from Gómez too, roaring with El Sadar as another opportunity escaped Sevilla, the title candidates who just won’t let go but just can’t quite hold on either.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | 23 | 28 | 53 |
| 2 | Sevilla | 23 | 18 | 47 |
| 3 | Real Betis | 23 | 14 | 40 |
| 4 | Barcelona | 22 | 11 | 38 |
| 5 | Atletico Madrid | 22 | 8 | 36 |
| 6 | Villarreal | 23 | 15 | 35 |
| 7 | Real Sociedad | 22 | 1 | 35 |
| 8 | Athletic Bilbao | 22 | 4 | 31 |
| 9 | Rayo Vallecano | 22 | 3 | 31 |
| 10 | Celta Vigo | 23 | 3 | 30 |
| 11 | Valencia | 23 | -1 | 30 |
| 12 | Osasuna | 23 | -5 | 29 |
| 13 | Espanyol | 22 | -4 | 27 |
| 14 | Elche | 23 | -5 | 26 |
| 15 | Getafe | 23 | -3 | 25 |
| 16 | Granada | 23 | -8 | 24 |
| 17 | Mallorca | 22 | -15 | 23 |
| 18 | Cadiz | 23 | -18 | 18 |
| 19 | Alaves | 23 | -21 | 17 |
| 20 | Levante | 22 | -25 | 11 |
