Javier Aguirre was first into the dressing room and first out again. “Those bastards put the music on full blast, so I had to leave,” the Real Mallorca manager said when he reappeared in the tunnel, and you couldn’t really blame him. Couldn’t really blame them, either. They had waited a long time for this, after all: Mallorca hadn’t even picked up a point since Valentine’s Day, seven consecutive defeats seeing them slip into the relegation zone and the coach who had brought them up depart in tears, sacked in favour of a final throw of the dice, but now at last they had won again. And against the champions too. “Liberation,” defender Pablo Maffeo called it once he had hauled himself back onto his feet at Son Moix, and it showed. That was Saturday afternoon; by the end of a wild weekend, it felt even better, everything falling into place for the first time in weeks.
Vedat Muriqi’s penalty had given Mallorca a 1-0 lead over Atlético Madrid with 22 minutes remaining that became 32. The week before they had been beaten in the 82nd minute at Getafe, against Betis it had been the 83rd, and Celta defeated them 4-3 in the 97th so they knew it wasn’t over even deep into 10 minutes of added time, clinging to a lifeline that could be lost. Every tackle and header clear was celebrated. Behind the goal, Jan Oblak confronted the ball boys. Idrissu Baba got hit full in the face. Antonio Raíllo fell too. And if, when asked how his injured player was, Aguirre admitted “faking it”, the tension was real – whistles frantic as the clock ticked towards three digits.
