The Espanyol is rowing and rowing and the yacht is just moving forward. After recovering from a very delicate game against Eibar with two goals from Puado, suddenly what seemed like a magical night turned into a huge fiasco. An away goal in the 97th minute of the match, also scored in an own goal by Puado, left the parrots with no room for maneuver, who lost two points when they were already singing victory and the possibility of returning to direct promotion positions.
Espanyol lives trapped in a football maze between what it wants to build and what its ability allows it to achieve. In this context, a pragmatic team arrived in Cornellà on both sides of the field. Eibar had won seven of their last eight games because they don't speculate. He knows what he wants and how to get it. It only took five minutes to decipher that the space between Víctor Ruiz, starter for the first time, and Brian Olivan was the ideal place to attack. That's where Aketxe, the best of the Basques, sent the ball and Jon Bautista did the rest. He sat Ruiz down with a dribble and fired at Pacheco.
Luis García's line-up was completely conditioned by the substitution of Óscar Gil (a mistake by him led to the first goal for the locals in El Molinón). The coach preferred to place a central player like Sergi Gómez on the side rather than give the illegality another chance.
After the away goal the nerves returned to the team and the fans. Receiving again on the first occasion left everyone very touched. It took time for Espanyol to recover, unable to create danger for many minutes. In fact, it was Eibar who scored the second, but the VAR appeared to cancel it for offside when cries of "out, out" could already be heard in the stands.
And the miracle came. For the first time in the entire game, the team combined quickly inside, the ball reached Pere Milla, who turned and found Jofre on the right. The latter drove deep to the end line and his back pass was furiously fired into the Puado net.
After the break, the dynamics of the match did not favor Espanyol. But Braithwaite appeared with an excellent move to work the second miracle of the night. The Dane raced past Berrocal with a subtle touch in space and, hand in hand with Zidane, was adept at provoking the penalty. This time it was Puado who took responsibility for the goal and the player from the squad did not fail to turn the game around and bring hope back to the stands.
Eibar then poured themselves into Pacheco's goal with more faith than football. Until in the last play of the game, Espanyol received another setback. One more in a season that was supposed to be about fun.
