“I’d like to see a different Valencia, but you have two options in life: give up or fight,” said the Valencia coach Rubén Baraja, and so they were going to fight. They were also, it turned out, going to be the Valencia that he and everyone else wanted to see but no one thought possible, not any more. The Valencia that was, well, Valencia, the way they used to be, the way they’re supposed to be; the Valencia that Diego Simeone said were “much better than us”, 45,363 people standing to applaud when it was all over and Atlético Madrid had been defeated 3-0. “This is a day to be enjoyed, for how hard it is to win,” Baraja said.
They had enjoyed it all right, the noise rolling down the vertical sides of Mestalla. As for hard, he could say that again so he did. Atlético were unbeaten, the last time they had played they had scored seven and Valencia hadn’t beaten them in 17 games, going back to 2014. “We have to accept that they have a very high level,” Baraja had said. Others dared say that they were title contenders again. Valencia by contrast had just come off two defeats that saw familiar ghosts reappear and their president had dared say that their target was survival, that Spain’s fourth biggest club should aspire only to avoid relegation.
