Real Oviedo: The Long Way Back
Watching the game in a hotel bar with a Real Oviedo fan as they aimed to get back to La Liga in Menorca encapsulated perfectly why we love football
Some clubs their story isn't well told and they have jewels hidden everywhere, Real Oviedo is not one of those theirs is a fascinating story but one well known.
Many of the struggles and tribulations are known to football fans especially through Real Oviedo fan and the oracle of Spanish Football Sid Lowe and apart from a brief summary of the past 24 seasons it won't be the story I tell here. The story I will tell is far more personal when it comes to what football means to us as fans.
In 2001 the Asturian side fell through the trapdoor after 13 consecutive seasons in La Liga.
It had been coming the club had won the relegation play-off three seasons earlier and not finished higher than 14th in the three seasons in between.
Even the most pessimistic Oviedista would never have predicted it would take 24 seasons to return to La Liga and all the pain they would have to endure in that time.
In that period the club lost promising youngsters such as Michu, Santi Cazorla and Juan Mata.
They almost lost more than that though they almost lost their club, the local council got behind a “phoenix” club known as Oviedo ACF with their club looking on the brink of oblivion.
They warded off the threat of the new club and through a campaign that became international saved the club from ruin.
The faces of that campaign were Santi Cazorla, Juan Mata and Michu.
This though isn't going to be a potted history of the club or even about the incredible story of Santi who effectively had to leave at 18 and came back to lead them to promotion age 40 while on the minimum wage with his only request for the club to donate proceeds of the Cazorla 8 shirt to the academy.
Last season Oviedo ended the pain having made the play-offs they defeated third place Eibar before eventually falling to Espanyol. That was a story of star power winning over the collective with a strike force of Martin Braithwaite and Javi Puado getting Espanyol over the line.
This though is a club who knows they never do it the easy way and have never taken defeat as an end. Instead they went again, Luis Carrion who had overseen the run to the play-offs left as Head Coach moving to La Liga side Las Palmas and Javi Calleja who had spells at Villarreal and Levante came in.
He started well, given the play-offs go until mid June the side who lose the final often struggle but they were in the mix from the get go.
Santi who had mainly been a sub under Carrion became a key part of the midfield again. Legs were added to the side in Kwasi Sibo, Ilyas Chaira, Haissem Hassan and Rahim Alhassane.
Despite the club being majority owned by Carlos Slim once the world's richest man, they've not spent their way to success as it's not allowed by the salary control. Due to having a big fanbase and all the commercial business that entails they've slowly been able to build up a good squad with some smart recruitment such as left back Alhassane from the third tier and Sibo who caught the eye at relegated Amorebieta.
Despite having started well the Calleja reign suddenly went sterile, his sides are often known for playing conservatively and a five game winless streak in March sealed his fate.
Former player in the La Liga days and in the team the season they went down Veljko Paunovic came in and has overseen just one defeat in the play-offs final first leg as he took Real Oviedo to the brink of promotion.
They took automatic promotion to the final day and got through big spending Almeria in the semi finals before losing the first leg of the final 1-0.
The second leg was at home, the febrile Carlos Tartiere, sold out and against a side who had performed a miracle to even reach this point in Mirandes.
I found myself in Menorca for the final, I wasn't fortunate enough to be in Asturias to feel it but I got the feeling elsewhere.
As I headed to the hotel bar that was showing the game the area was empty bar one seat, a man in his 40s looking anguished and stressed and this was pre-match. In an old Real Oviedo top he looked a similar age to Santi and as Santi ran around he looked as distressed and tired as the veteran midfield maestro running through the heat of a Spanish summer.
His age meant he had seen his team in La Liga, he had also seen them drop down with a double relegation to the fourth tier.
In the fourth tier they often outnumbered home sides three or four to one with away supporters. They sold over 20,000 season tickets in the fourth tier as well.
To be an Oviedo fan over a certain age meant you've seen them in the golden years and also in the worst of times and yet here he was proud in his retro Real Oviedo shirt.
Passers by stopped what they were doing to watch, while they watched, my companion couldn't and again he headed to the phone but just as he began to ran up he couldn't help but look up and there it was.
Before the game Santi Cazorla who has played in the EURO final for Spain declared this was the biggest game of his life and in the biggest moment he delivered.
My friend looked like the weight of the world was off his shoulders. Half time came and my friend dashed to the toilet, he hadn't been able to go for not wanting to miss a second of the action.
His kids came during the interval to do a wellbeing check, wearing pink away shirts with Cazorla on the back of course.
The second half began and Real Oviedo were again in the ascendancy. Mirandes always looked dangerous but the ball was primarily Real Oviedo's.
Ilyas Chaira who had a spell on loan at Mirandes grabbed the second goal to put Real Oviedo in the driving seat. Having finished ahead of Mirandes the maths were now simple keep the scoreline at 2-1 and promotion would be there's after 120 minutes.
For my friend though that was a lifetime, his knees started to bounce up and down, the wellbeing checks from his family became more frequent. Passers by would stop stare at the screen for a minute or two then carry on not knowing what my friend was living in every second as the game turned end to end.
Mirandes pushed on and on, they refused to go down without fighting. Panichelli chased everything, his partner upfront Urko Izeta the stereotype of a Basque brute of a striker put himself everywhere but they couldn't create that clear chance until they did.
The ball came in and lurking was Panichelli, his header clean and pure flew towards the goal, my companion took a breathe in and Aaron in goal pushed it out but into danger, time felt like it stopped as the Mirandes attacker attempted to strike it but the block came in.
Was that the moment that saved Real Oviedo? If it was fate for Real Oviedo to go up this season it didn't feel it for my companion in the bar it felt more like a slow and painful torture with no sense of when the torture would end or if his captors would ever let it end.
The whistle went for the end of 90 minutes and again my friend ran to the bar with a heavy breathe and a laugh, as the sides prepared for extra time I wished him luck knowing the suffering he was going through.
He thanked me but you could tell he couldn't think of the words to say to strike up conversation given so much was going through his mind and emotionally he was going through something that can't be described.
Panichelli again had a chance and could have scored to swing the tie but it was missed much to my friends relief, again he could breathe. The welfare checks came with increasing amounts of beer provided for my companion who was suffering more than ever.
Then it came, the crucial goal to put Real Oviedo 3-1 ahead and with effectively a two goal cushion. Mirandes started the season with just about a starting eleven and depth is something this team simply doesn't have so the first substitution came at the start of extra time.
They tired as Real Oviedo finally showed the depth of their squad with substitute Francisco Portillo scoring the goal to return them to the big time.
The goal wasn't met with the excitement I was expecting, it was met with relief from a man who had suffered for 103 minutes and finally felt he could breathe.
It didn't last long though as a minute later he realised what it's like being a fan of a club who aren't the big two and turned to me and said, it would be typical for us to throw this away now.
They didn't and as the promotion became inevitable his family finally felt they could join him without disturbing him and I felt it was right to leave them to enjoy this moment.
He had grown up with his side a La Liga side but then seen them plummet to the fourth tier, almost go out of business, lose the support of the local council but never the support of the fans and this was his moment and the moment of thousands of Real Oviedo fans around the world to enjoy so who was I to intrude on that.