It wasn’t a day for faint hearts. The motorway that snakes west from the French border across the roof of Spain can look stunning when the sun’s out, with the green pastures, the craggy mountains and the snapshot views of the sparkling sea to your right hand-side. But when the weather turns, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re heading towards Mordor.
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About five minutes from the Eibar exit on Saturday afternoon, where the motorway reaches one of its highest points, the hard rain was pelting down on the crooked highway. Impenetrable clouds swirled around hidden peaks, lightning flashed and dragons flew. Down below, Barcelona FC were making their first-ever visit to Eibar’s tiny stadium, Ipurua, but the players were by then tucked up snugly in their dressing-room, probably thinking about their next two games, against the other two richest sides in the world – Manchester City and Real Madrid. I was thinking about whether my quivering umbrella would keep me dry as I struggled past the abandoned factories, car showrooms and tousled supermarkets that line the road up to the stadium. There is no parking space, no infrastructure in place. You need to know the tricks, and the only places to park are on the outskirts of town. But it’s a unique scene. Eibar vs Barcelona has never happened before, and may never happen again.
Poor Eibar. The seams of the dreams are beginning to unravel. Seven consecutive defeats since the Christmas break, and Barcelona were the visitors, with 16 wins from the last 17 games. It was a case of thank-you-fate, then grin and bear it. Next week Eibar travel to Granada, and there they will have to stop the haemorrhage. And just to rub it in, Luis Enrique had already announced that the three musketeers, the holy trinity, or the triple whammy – whatever Leo Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez are now called – were in the starting line-up. Eibar could have been forgiven for thinking that their visitors would be resting some of the big guns, but no. Barcelona now have a department store, M&S, to contrast and compare with Madrid’s BBC. Better than S&M, of course, but let’s dig no further . The ‘S’ element, Luis Súarez, cost Barcelona Dh 408 million (£75m) in summer, whilst Eibar were splashing out on their record signing (ironically from Barcelona) Dani Nieto, who cost more like £75,000. Or was it £75 pounds? I forget. Whatever, Nieto is warming the bench today, and has only managed six appearances since his transfer.
It’s the sort of game and context that aristocrats such as Barça should theoretically find difficult. Two big games coming up, and they’re obliged to trek to Mordor in the cold and the rain to play a team of alleged whack-it-up and kick-‘em-hard merchants, but the myth that Eibar’s little ground is somehow intimidating is not backed up by the data. They’ve only won three games at home up to Saturday, and lost seven. They’ve also lost seven away, but have actually garnered more points on their travels. None of the big sides had so far succumbed to this alleged Mordor factor. Would Barcelona be the first?
Eibar run out in Barcelona’s colours, causing the hunched-up scribes in the tiny press area a brief cerebral out-take, whilst the visitors appear in a fetching orange, which nicely matches the hoardings behind. In 1943, three years after Eibar FC’s birth, the regional federation gifted them a full Barcelona kit (which was all they had at the time) and the colours have stayed the same ever since. Down below, Neymar blows out his cheeks and rubs his hands as if standing over a brazier of roasting chestnuts. He seems perplexed by the surroundings, and shuffles over to the left touchline, inches from the spectators.
Something has changed since I last visited for the home game against Real Madrid. As Barcelona attempt to stem the tide of Eibar’s lively opening spurt, the spectators refrain from howling when Piqué goes in hard, and simply encourage their boys. Apart from the fact that the region is much less hostile to the Catalans than it is to any representatives from Madrid, the run of defeats seems to have subdued the public somewhat – robbed the bullish edge from their perspective. But if the M&S was not entirely expected, the visitors’ midfield looks unusual, with Sergi Roberto playing as the central pivote, flanked on either side by Ivan Rakitic and Rafinha. Sergio Busquets is out and Martin Montoya and Adriano are replacing the usual guys. Some players are being saved for the clásico, some for Wednesday night.
Roberto, still a fleeting figure in Barcelona’s line-ups (11 appearances in total this season), looks lively, and most of the early play goes through him. Rafinha, on the other hand, wants too much time on the ball, and takes too long to make decisions. Eibar’s five-man midfield crowd him out and hassle him. Rakitic looks elegant but uninterested. Indeed, nothing much of note takes place until the 21st minute, when Messi suddenly bursts into life, tracking back into his own half and beginning a slalom from a similar position to his famous 2007 re-enactment versus Getafe of Maradona’s goal against England.
Lionel Messi hier face à Eibar … pic.twitter.com/sEQaKCEZvA
— FOOTBALL Vine ⚽️ (@FOOT_Vine_) March 15, 2015
This run (he beats four men) doesn’t end in a goal, but rather in an impossible nutmeg of poor Raul Navas, done at supersonic speed and with such split-second timing that the Eibar defender simply gawps hopelessly at the air in front of him. Messi has zapped past, an occupant of some other space-time continuum. The Spanish journalist to my left shakes his head. “Messi es la hostia” he shrugs (Messi is the cat’s whiskers). Actually, there is no Spanish-speaking football journalist alive who has not pronounced this phrase at some point since 2004, when Messi made his debut. Still, it was nice to be there, to see him do this slalom in the flesh. My dad took me to Nottingham when I was elevent to see George Best similarly confuse a herd of Forest defenders – and not since then have I seen anything quite like Messi’s little run on Saturday.
Neymar and Suarez are missing in action, but ten minutes later Messi is at it again, and his goal-bound shot is involuntarily handled by Borja Ekiza, Eibar’s defender. The ref points to the spot and Messi does the business efficiently. Eibar’s brand-new electronic screen flashes up the score above the huddle of celebrating players, its sharp light piercing the gathering gloom. The misty mountains darken above the stands, and Eibar know there’s no way back. They haven’t actually been playing badly, but they lack imagination in the final ball, and although their counter-attacks are swift and promising, they run aground on the rocks of Pique’s positioning and Marc Bartra’s speed, plus the obvious fact that any time Eibar’s Saul Berjón (for example) gets away, there is no team-mate to support him. It’s there that Eibar’s technical shortcomings are most exposed.
Messi scores a header from a corner in the second half (allegedly the first time he has done this) – the Eibar defenders all fooled into worrying about Piqué and Bartra – and the game is up, despite a late rally and a shot onto the bar from the lively sub, Fred Piovacarri. Xavi comes on for his 750th appearance, and is applauded sportingly by the Eibar fans, who then boo Neymar for his body-language protest as he is substituted eight minutes later. Get a grip, they seem to be saying. Try playing here for tuppence a week.
Elsewhere, Real Madrid will defeat Levante 2-0 on Sunday to keep up their motivation for the clásico, but it is also a result relevant to Eibar, who are now casting nervous glances below. Granada succumb 3-1 to Rayo Vallecano after going in at half-time in the lead, and Almería draw at home to Villarreal, leaving the third-from-bottom relegation spot on 22 points, five fewer than Eibar’s current total.
In the press conference, Luis Enrique, sporting a natty tie for the cameras but wearing running shoes beneath the desk, praises Eibar for “making Barcelona work” and hopes they will stay up. That’s what they all say, but something in his expression suggests he means it. As his players turn their thoughts to the clásico and its mega-buck madness, Eibar has been a different day out for his squad, a grimly exotic location where things are not quite the same – a place where they might remember their roots, of how they started out with nothing. That’s good for La Liga. That’s good for football.
