At the end of Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw at Sevilla on Saturday evening, the battle finally over and all the better for the bruises, Sergio Ramos turned to the camera following him across the grass as he hugged old friends and waved to even older ones, and smiled. For the first time since he had left the Santiago Bernabéu, the most successful captain in the history of the most successful club, he had faced his former team, a 37-year-old still playing back where it had all begun, and he had come this close to doing the most Sergio Ramos thing of all. “I had it,” he said. “I had it, just there. And it got away.”
The clock had showed 93.52, Ramos Time on Ramos Day, when Suso curled a ball into the area and from somewhere in the crowd, he rose again. Here it was: another story as unbelievable as it was inevitable, another comic strip made for the comeback of a cartoon character, this absurd action hero of a thousand tall tales, running in when time is running out. But what makes them work, what makes football keep making them up is that it doesn’t have to; they’re ridiculous but real, not done. And so, over Antonio Rüdiger, beyond Kepa Arrizabalaga, above everyone, Ramos connected with the header, three yards out.
