The liturgy is everything in San Mamés. A stadium that is much more than a place where you play with a ball. In no other field on the planet is football an appendix of tradition as it happens here. From the Lord’s Prayer that the Athletic captain recites in the midst of the deathly silence of the locker room, to the traditional txalaparta, an instrument that utters tribal sounds before the game that build an atmosphere that exudes solemnity. San Mamés is culture, customs and football. From ancient and modern. The one that causes pain and the one that leads to ecstasy. That is why when, like Espanyol yesterday, a team faces Athletic, they know that they are not doing so against eleven footballers, but against all this mystique that makes San Mamés a terrible experience.
That was exactly what Manolo González’s team experienced, until now the miracle worker of the loaves and fishes in Cornellà. The disaster was total. A true hell in which they conceded three goals in the first half hour alone, to end up clearly beaten in the second half.
González repeated the trivote in the middle, but the plan was not a ruin
Faced with the possibility of coming out with an important goring, Manolo González configured an eleven tailored to his rival. He repeated with a trivote in the middle, with Alex Král as a key player and doubled the sides on the left, to protect himself from the speed of Iñaki Williams.
The plan turned out to be a ruin and Espanyol was from the beginning a negligent team incapable of competing, something that is new after a very decent start to the season. The central parrots were evident, who seemed like robots incapable of moving to the dance rhythm of the Williams and company.
Athletic midfielder Álex Berenguer (d) scores a goal during the LaLiga EA Sports match between Athletic Club and Espanyol
Espanyol conceded very early from a set piece, and was not able to recover from that blow. Both Kumbulla and Sergi Gómez skated in the first two goals. In the first, the Italian-Albanian was not on top enough to prevent Vivian’s shot from a corner. In the second, the eldest Williams wedged himself between them and received a great pass from Berenguer that left him alone against Joan García.
Between both goals, Espanyol had barely crossed the center of the field. Only Jofre attempted rides as heroic as they were impossible for his band. When the team was trying to score the second goal, Nico Williams, a differential player, appeared on the scene to get rid of El Hilali and attract several defenders. When he could no longer continue, he gave way to Berenguer, who gave continuity to Williams so that, completely alone, he shot Joan García for the third. Athletic enjoyed a completely broken Espanyol.
The changes did not improve the team, which lived a nightmare in San Mamés
Faced with such a dire outlook, Manolo González introduced a triple change at half-time to form a five-man defense. With nothing at stake, it was a matter of trying to improve the image or, if anything, of not conceding a bigger win. But Espanyol was not even able to achieve that. The one who rounded off his magnificent afternoon was Berenguer, yesterday invisible to the parakeet defenders, who received completely alone again in the front, surpassed Sergi Gómez, and made the fourth with a low shot. Tejero, with a free kick, made up the result in added time.
Quite a blow of reality for Espanyol, surpassed from start to finish in San Mamés. A defeat that hurts because of the size of the result, but above all because of the way in which it occurred. When it seemed that Manolo González had achieved balance in the team, this setback will once again open a debate about the capabilities of his team
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