For one magical moment in the sunshine and the spotlight, the roughest man in Spanish football was the smoothest, the toughest, its most vulnerable. With his ponytail and the stubble covering a face that’s been lived in, they call Vedat Muriqi the Pirate and he’s supposed to have the turning circle of a galleon. But here there was grace, all 6ft 4in and 14st 8lb of him moving as if he were wearing slippers, not a pair of size 15s. The first touch, with the left, couldn’t have been softer; the second, with the right, couldn’t have been harder, all that emotion unleashed with the violence. The ball crashed into the net and the Kosovan crashed on to the turf, where he wept.
Muriqi had just scored the goal that may have brought the league title race to an early close, Mallorca defeating Real Madrid 2-1 with his 91st-minute goal a couple of hours before Barcelona went to Atlético Madrid and won in the 89th. But that wasn’t why he lay there, everyone going wild around him. It wasn’t why his face was hidden but his feelings couldn’t be, huge frame heaving. Muriqi was sobbing so hard it was a wonder Son Moix didn’t shake with him; some of the 23,015 inside it certainly did. Teammates came to him, embracing him briefly from behind then leaving him to let it out: first Omar Mascarell, then Sergi Darder, then Johan Mojica.
