Newton’s Law says force is equal to mass times acceleration. What it doesn’t say is what a penalty is, but perhaps it should. Rafa Benítez reckons so at least after his team ended another weekend in the relegation zone, fans whistling and waving white hankies while he had a quick flick through Principia on his way to meeting the ladies and gentlemen of the press. Never mind the referee, the assistant referees, the fourth official, the video assistant referee, the assistant to the video assistant referee (two of those), the TV technician, the supervisor and whoever lurks in that side-room at Las Rozas, what we really need is a physicist, the Celta coach told them; time to travel to Nasa to find the best.
Well, anything had to be better than this. On the night after Benítez had insisted his team would keep on keeping on however many times they “trip us up” and before the city’s biggest newspaper would describe them as Spanish football’s “punch bag,” just there to be pummelled, victims of a shadowy hidden hand, he lamented that this was the same old story. The fans would agree, if not solely for the reasons he offered up. “Once again we’re talking about how well we played, how many chances we had,” Benítez claimed on Saturday as they trudged home through the storm. “And how we didn’t get three points.”
This time, for the first time in seven weeks and only the second all season, they had thought they were going to, gifted hope only to be made to give it back again. On a wet, stormy night that had begun with protests and would end with them too, for a little while Celta had something to celebrate instead, a lifeline laid before them. It lasted three minutes and thirty-five seconds; the fall-out lasted a lot longer. Instead it was Sevilla who were bailed out; not, it would turn out, for the first time.
Celta had been a goal up against Sevilla, the better side until an eighty-fourth minute goal from Yousuf En Nesyri made it 1-1 at Balaídos, leaving them facing the prospect of another late, painful defeat. But they had watched, relieved, as Ivan Rakitic’s shot flew over on 91.04 and Adrià Pedrosa somehow failed to finish them off on 92.26. Down to10 men, they were at least holding on to a decent draw, Balaídos whistling for the end and erupting into a cheer when goalkeeper Vicente Guaita caught a cross on 95.15 of 96. But then something even better happened: they were handed a penalty with five seconds left.
A cross from the right sailed some way over Tasos Douvikas’s head but as it went so did he, falling in front of goal. Alejandro Hernández Hernández, the referee so good they named him twice, pointed to the spot. On the bench and around the ground, everyone exploded, embracing. Carlos Dotor, who had sent the cross in, spun on his heel, punching the air. Unai Núñez held Douvakis hard. The way it’s been going, they might miss it, but still: this was it, a shot at a first home win this season, a chance to pull out of the relegation zone. It was a little light and a little lucky – daft too – but Jesús Navas had pulled at Douvikas’s arm, there might have been a touch by the ankle too, and down in the rain Hernández Hernández had no doubt.
Up in a small room in Las Rozas, 551km south-east, Eduardo Prieto Iglesias did. There was a conversation, a couple of minutes going by, and Hernández Hernández went to the screen, or tried to through the players blocking his path, Celta captain Iago Aspas getting up from the bench where he was watching it on an iPad to join them. There, a crowd gathered round him, peering over his shoulder and putting the pressure on, trying to get a glimpse of the screen like passing fans watching a penalty through a pub window. On the screen, the images were stopped, started, slowed down, and freeze-framed. Until, on 99.30, the ref announced that, actually, there was no penalty after all.
Furious, Aspas began waving at his players to walk off. He grabbed the VAR screen and threw it to the ground, striking a blow for all that is right which will be a ban even though he apologised the next day – push a player, sure, but don’t mess with the machines. Benítez silently shook his head, repeatedly muttering “incredible”, death staring the three officials down the tunnel. In the stands, the chant began: “Hands up, this is a robbery!” In the PA booth, someone whacked on a Raphael CD and soon the fans were dancing. The track chosen: Escándalo. “I can understand why they’re annoyed,” Sevilla winger Lucas Ocampos admitted.
Reaching the press room, Benítez didn’t even allow them to ask a question before he gave his first answer, time for some facts. “Force is equal to mass times acceleration and measured in Newtons,” he said. “I don’t know how much force is needed for a player to fall to the floor. Ten Newtons? Twelve, twenty, a hundred Newtons? It’s complicated. Do any of you know? You can speak to a physicist and we can put him in the VAR room, another person working there to tell us what force is needed for a person to fall.” They could ask Nasa to provide a physicist, he added. When he said much the same to the television, the reporter said something about him keeping his sense of humour at least. “It’s not humour, it’s resignation,” Benítez replied.
“Everyone saw it,” Aspas said. “It seems like every time we raise our heads, they try to sink us again. If it happens once, you put your head down; twice, three times … but we’re 12 weeks in and it’s seven games where it has not fallen our way. How can you re-referee the intensity of a tug when you’ve already given it? What’s he going to see in the VAR? With all the [decisions] they took off us, we should be almost in the Champions League places.”
That was pushing it, but Celta have had ‘goals’ ruled out against Mallorca, Real Madrid, Las Palmas and Girona. Last week’s decision at Montilivi, in particular, was ludicrous, while in Mallorca Benítez could not believe there was no goalline technology. Two weeks ago, Celta sent a delegation to Madrid to see the head of the referees and “ask nicely” what was going on, as the coach put it. On Saturday there were already protests in the 12th minute, placards demanding respect. And then in the 99th minute, came this.
But if refereeing decisions offer comfort, excuse and an external enemy, what they don’t offer is an entirely convincing explanation for the situation Celta are in; they may in fact risk avoiding issues at a club that survived on the final day last season, that sold their outstanding young player, and whose sporting director also works for PSG, made six signings in the summer and didn’t fill the big hole in the middle of the midfield. A club where Aspas, their everything – youth teamer, leader, captain, future sporting director, and the man single-handedly responsible for rescuing them three times – has repeatedly warned of a talent deficit. And where, at 36, even he can’t go on for ever.
It is true that Celta have been better than their results suggest. So has Aspas. He has created more chances than anyone and only taken four shots fewer than Iñaki Williams, who is top. Only Barcelona, Madrid and Sevilla have had more opportunities than Celta and only seven teams have taken more shots. Only two have beaten them by more than a single goal. When they lost 3-0 to Atlético they had more shots, in the 2-2 draw with Getafe, the tally said 26-3. Madrid only beat them with a Bellingham goal and they were 2-0 up against Barcelona with eight minutes to go.
Friday: Las Palmas 2-1 Atlético. Sat: Betis 2-0 Mallorca, Celta 1-1 Sevilla, Osasuna 2-4 Girona, Real Sociedad 0-1 Barcelona. Sun: Alavés 1-0 Almería, Real Madrid 0-0 Rayo, Valencia 1-0 Granada, Villarreal 2-3 Athletic. Monday fixture: Getafe v Cádiz.
And yet they lost 3-2 that game, just as two late goals, on 81 and 97, saw them defeated in Las Palmas and a 91st minute goal saw them lose at Girona, the league leaders. Fading after an hour is becoming their thing and the bottom line remains: they have won only only once all season, at Almería. For all those chances, only Las Palmas, Cádiz and Alavés have scored fewer. As for Aspas, top scorer for each of the past eight years, his totals read: 18, 26, 23, 21, 14, 14, 18, 12 and … zero. Bafflingly, he has not scored since March. It really should be temporary but it is not just that Celta are not in the Champions League places; it is that they are 18 points and 14 places away, currently going down. Never mind the Newtons, never mind Nasa, those are numbers to concern.
Besides, if that was bad, 18km away at Peinador Airport the injustice was played out all over again only much worse, a bureaucrat hidden away in an office somewhere rescuing Sevilla for a second time, beneficiaries of another bad call. When Diego Alonso’s team arrived a technical fault with their aircraft meant that they couldn’t fly, so Air Nostrum cancelled and commandeered a flight to Madrid instead booting out the people who were supposed to be on board and loading it with footballers instead. Never mind a penalty, the passengers had an entire plane taken from them, left stranded in Galicia while Celta’s opponents set off home taking someone else’s wings and someone else’s win with them.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Girona | 12 | 14 | 31 |
| 2 | Real Madrid | 12 | 15 | 29 |
| 3 | Barcelona | 12 | 12 | 27 |
| 4 | Atletico Madrid | 11 | 15 | 25 |
| 5 | Athletic Bilbao | 12 | 7 | 21 |
| 6 | Real Betis | 12 | 1 | 20 |
| 7 | Real Sociedad | 12 | 5 | 19 |
| 8 | Valencia | 12 | 2 | 18 |
| 9 | Rayo Vallecano | 12 | -1 | 18 |
| 10 | Las Palmas | 12 | -1 | 17 |
| 11 | Osasuna | 12 | -6 | 13 |
| 12 | Getafe | 11 | -3 | 12 |
| 13 | Villarreal | 12 | -4 | 12 |
| 14 | Alaves | 12 | -6 | 12 |
| 15 | Sevilla | 11 | 1 | 11 |
| 16 | Cadiz | 11 | -6 | 10 |
| 17 | Mallorca | 12 | -6 | 9 |
| 18 | Celta Vigo | 12 | -9 | 7 |
| 19 | Granada | 12 | -12 | 6 |
| 20 | Almeria | 12 | -18 | 3 |
