So close and so far, direct promotion is gradually slipping from the boots of the Espanyol players. Tie by tie, the parakeets see the great goal of the season receding on the horizon. The parakeets, with more attitude than game, signed the fourth consecutive draw, and the sixth in seven games, against Sporting at the Stage Front Stadium. A puncture that could be decisive before facing the final that awaits the blue and white team the next day in Valladolid.
It doesn't matter how anymore. It doesn't matter if the team plays average or poorly. If it lacks personality or if it should play with a more daring approach that makes clear its superior status in the category. Now, in the final stretch of the season, there is only time to add the maximum number of points. And with that feeling, Manolo González's students seemed to take the field, with more heart than head and prisoners of their lack of gunpowder. But not even against the Asturians, a direct rival, at least, for the playoff.
Pol Lozano's absence due to injury was replaced by Gastón, a starter for the second time this season and the only new addition to the eleven, who formed an attacking duo with Braithwaite. The good forward pressure and the local intensity at the start, a non-negotiable in a key match, collided with the hasty decision-making. The chances were blurred on the edge of the visiting area. Aguado, Puado and Jofre did not find the key in promising situations that died in a missed pass or in a run-in shot.
On the other side there was no news from Sporting in the early stages. Only Hassan, the most skilled of the people from Gijón, gave a certain sense of danger, his driving being stopped with a foul. The Frenchman, with some unnecessary flourish, unnerved half the parakeet team and a large part of the 25,015 spectators in the stands, the best entry of the season.
Miguel Ángel Ramírez's men only woke up half an hour into the game with a steal by Gaspar on Gragera that ended in a goal, disallowed, by Mario González. The red-and-white striker was offside by a few centimeters. The blue and white reply came five minutes later with a tense cross from Brian Oliván that beat goalkeeper Yáñez and reached the feet of Gastón, who alone and with the goal empty sent the ball over the crossbar in, without a doubt, the clearest chance. of the first part.
Espanyol continued to be more incisive after the restart, adding more arguments in front of the goal, but again erratic in the definition. The arrivals ended in deflected shots except in one of them, after a shot by Gastón, which ended in Diego Sánchez's hand stuck to the body. The referee, Milla Alvéndiz, and the VAR did not consider it a penalty.
Joan García continued unprecedented, with an Asturian team unable to put together a decent play in attack. But the script changed in the last quarter of an hour as a result of a fight between starters, substitutes and coaches that messed up the game and made the parakeets lose momentum. Espanyol's last in the 86th minute, and Braithwaite's first, was a too-focused point-blank shot that Yáñez deflected. Sporting was still able to take the three points after a shot by Queipo that went over the crossbar
