“This was life or death,” Jorge Molina said and he had chosen life again, clinging on to primera, his place. It had taken him until he was 29 to reach the first division, finally making it around about the time a career in the lower leagues should have started winding down, eight seasons, five teams, three tiers, more than 250 games and a hundred goals after he had begun in Benidorm. Twice it had been taken away from him, twice he returned, fighting back when he was supposed to be finished, and there was no way he was going to let it be three. Which is why come Saturday afternoon he was standing there in the sunshine smiling a little shyly and up in one corner of the stands they were celebrating.
Granada are not safe yet, but the tension was released for a few hours at least, something very significant secured beyond the three points they had so badly needed after five months in which they won only once in the league. “We like seeing them happy,” the coach Aitor Karanka said at the end of Saturday’s vital victory over Real Mallorca lifted his team out of the relegation zone for the first time since he took over three unbeaten weeks ago. “When I came in, all I saw were anxious, nervous faces,” he said. “The weight taken from our shoulders is brutal. If today was a final, we would be champions.”
