Eibar enjoy spotlight vs Real Madrid

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  • Cristiano Ronaldo scored again as Real Madrid beat Eibar on what was a memorable day for the Basque side.

    I suspect that there has never really been a game quite like the one on Saturday night at Eibar, at least not in the history of La Liga. Real Madrid were in town, or more accurately they were staying in Bilbao, down the road – and Eibar’s entire populace (27,000, or a third of the Bernabeu’s normal crowd) were out on the streets as if it were an important local fiesta. Real Madrid had actually been before, back in January 2004 for a Copa Del Rey match with a posse of reserve players, and I was at that game too. It ended 1-1, Guti scored, and Iker Casillas was between the sticks. He probably never expected to be returning 10 years later for a league fixture, the only surviving member of that 2004 side to do so.

    This sort of David v Goliath clash has become a concept that we associate with Cup matches, and wonderful though those occasions can be, it’s really quite unusual to have one in a league match. And just in case Eibar’s surreal rise to the top flight of Spanish football eventually becomes a brief footnote in football history, the residents of the town were determined to squeeze the maximum from the day, as if royalty had come to town and conferred something special on the little community, isolated up in the Basque Country – a town clinging to the sides of a small gash in the mountains.

    Two hours before kick-off and everyone seems to be out on the streets, the bars are awash with folks, and the narrow streets that surround the ground are lined with a steady stream of hyper-active ants, all of whom seem to know each other. Occasional clumps of Real Madrid fans creep by, looking like people suffering from the early symptoms of culture shock.  

    This is, after all, the ultimate ‘compare and contrast’ game, with Eibar’s entire annual budget of 15 million surpassed by the salary of Cristiano Ronaldo. The night’s attendance of 5,859 is a record for the ground, aided and abetted by the rather wonky temporary stand erected along half of the northern stand’s side, overlooked by a tall block of flats which probably affords the game’s best view. Each balcony of the high-rise is packed with spectators, and on the small hill to the south of the ground an impromptu crowd has gathered to watch the game though the gap in the terracing. I take a photo of four smiling Chinese men, each decked out in Eibar’s Barcelona-like colours. Inside, there are no spare seats, and obtaining a press pass has been difficult. My allocated seat is quashed up beneath an improvised iron table, pushed up behind the top row of the eastern stand.

    As the players warm up, Basque heavy-metal shrieks out from the stadium’s metallic speakers and the Real Madrid players look uncomfortable and out of place, like the first human visitors contemplating the alien landscape of the planet Zarg. The well-groomed Italian journalist to my right is from Gazzetta dello Sport, and obviously accustomed to his creature comforts has put his laptop away and is shrugging at the absence of an electric socket and some wi-fi signal. He looks completely bemused. “What language is that music in?” he shouts in my ear, stressed out by the din. I reply that it is Basque. “Ah!” he shouts, and scribbles a quick hand-note onto his pad. He points behind us to a small table on which the club has kindly plonked an old coffee machine, out of courtesy to the visiting journalists. “Don’t drink it!” he squeaks in English. “It’s pessimo!”

    With the light fading behind the west stand and the inky sky merging with the dark line of the mountains, the game gets under way. Eibar are on a run of three consecutive home draws, and have not won in Ipurua since the opening day of the season, lending a statistical lie to the old cliché that their little ground is a place to fear – especially for their aristocratic visitors who have won their last eight league games on the trot. Luka Modric is out for three months, however, and there is hope that their midfield will thus be weakened. Before the game the local press has insisted that speedy types such as Gareth Bale will find it difficult to play a counter-attacking game, because of the lack of braking space between the pitch’s lines and the stands. Eibar are missing Raul Navas and Lillo from their defence, plus their relatively exotic Italian striker Federico Piovaccari, who is carrying an injury. Madrid decide not to replace Modric with Sami Khedira after all, and James Rodriguez sits back in the centre of midfield alongside Isco, with Toni Kroos behind as the sole defensive pivot.

    The game starts at a predictably frenetic pace, and every physical challenge by Real Madrid sends the spectators into a collective frenzy, howling at the referee and generating more decibels than 85,000 at the Bernabéu. Jon Errasti, the only local boy, goes on a run which involves a nutmeg of James, and the crowd leaps to its feet and dances, as if their seats have suddenly been shot through with electricity. Eibar look to have settled when Madrid suddenly score, Ronaldo magically chipping the ball over Ekiza’s challenge, crossing to Karim Benzema – who looks offside – then crossing again from an offside position himself for James to score with a header at the far post.

    The crowd are suitably incensed, and a spectator turns to me and shouts “Diles que es un robo! Diles que siempre es así!” (“Tell them it’s robbery. Tell them that it always is”). I give him the thumbs up. The Italian journalist looks as if he would prefer to be somewhere else. But despite the righteous indignation, one thing is very clear. This Madrid is a very different model to last season – happy, quick, and confident, stallions in a field of shire horses. Eibar try to intimidate, bless them, but Madrid can look after themselves. Pepe growls, Kroos struts, Carvajal races up and down the flank like a man possessed, and whereas Eibar have decided to play a pressing game, they are simply overwhelmed by the combination of Real Madrid’s work-rate and quality. Nevertheless, they almost score, Casillas responding to a quick break by foiling Saúl Berjón with his feet, but before half-time the inevitable happens and Ronaldo scores his 19th league goal of the season. Only Bale looks vaguely out of place. Like an overgrown schoolboy who forgot his uniform, he fails to connect with the other players, and wanders around rather aimlessly.

    The second half is witness to a display of orchestral magnificence from Kroos, who continually robs the ball, anticipates everything, and distributes with perfect timing and sense. He hardly seems to break sweat. Benzema scores a controversial third, Ronaldo buries a penalty, and the party balloons begin to sag. But even at 0-4, Madrid are pressing higher than Eibar, sliding in, going for more. They have now won 14 consecutive games, one shy of Mourinho’s record, and could equal it in midweek in Basel.

    On the way out, the traffic police direct me down to the square, where the road back to San Sebastian is blocked off and a massive crowd has gathered. I feel like a fish in a goldfish bowl. Annoyed, I open the car door and ask a policeman why the crowd is gathered. “To watch the Real Madrid bus go by, of course!” he replies, as if I must be mad.

    Strange indeed the passions football unlocks. Way over to the east in Barcelona, Leo Messi is about to surpass Telmo Zarra’s 251 league goals, a record which has stood unmolested since 1955. Messi scores a hat-trick, the 16th of his career, but it is his second goal that breaks the record. He has achieved this in eleven seasons, whereas Zarra took fifteen. All this in a week when the Argentinean hinted that he might be looking for a new challenge in his career. I can confirm that Grimsby Town are interested, and that I’ll happily help to broker the deal. 

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