Imagine you win the Copa del Rey. It is the fourth time in history, the biggest explosion of joy in 40 years, maybe more, maybe ever. It needs 120 exhausting minutes and a nerve-shredding penalty shootout, so it’s nearly midnight Saturday when Pablo Marín – a ballboy the last time you reached the final – takes you over the line and after 2am Sunday before you leave the stadium. You get back to the hotel at 2.39am, a disco set up on the second floor. Taxis come at 4.45am, the celebrations going on someplace else, and the bus is waiting to depart at 10.15am, the partying guests at the NH Collection up again already. Or just not going down at all.
En route to the airport someone realises one of you did not make it, another cab hurriedly called. You fly 1,000km north, drinks trolley emptied, touch down about two, carry the trophy across the runway in Hondarribia, and do it all over again. The song that accompanied you on your most joyous journey, the soundtrack to the best days of your lives borrowed from Bad Bunny, demands coffee in the morning, rum in the evening, and so it goes, although the manager prefers gin and tonic and admits that “maybe there was an extra beer or two”. A crowd waits at Zubieta – not so much a training ground as a concept – to welcome you home and that’s nothing compared to what awaits beyond.
