On the sixth floor of the tower block at No 1 Indalecio Ojanguren Street they started clapping. A few metres to the right, on the fifth floor of No 2, they began too and soon everyone had joined in: on all the balconies where flags hang and the occupants look out over the pitch, a standing ovation 15 stories high, and in the small stand facing them. Kike García made his way to edge of the pitch while teammates and staff applauded an astonishing hat-trick from the man they most wanted to score it: the big, loveable lump whose three goals had just defeated Alavés and given Eibar something to hold onto.
Kike turned up the touchline to the convent end, shook hands with the ball girl hiding from the rain in the corner, stumbled slightly as he went up the metal stairs, and headed along the empty stand where Josu Anuzita, the goalkeeper coach, was waiting to embrace him. Together they sat on the concrete steps watching the final nine minutes of Eibar’s 3-0 win over fellow Basque strugglers Alavés, their first in 16, aware that even the game of his life might not matter – except that every minute matters and the warmth showed that this moment definitely did. History had been made and hope returned, if only for a little while.
No one had ever scored a hat-trick for Eibar in primera and no one has scored more goals there either, Saturday taking Kike ahead of Sergi Enrich four games before they probably leave again. It’s hard to think of a better hat-trick seen live – although that familiar “Except Messi” proviso probably applies – Kike twice controlling on the chest to finish the first, sending a superb half-volley past Fernando Pacheco with the outside of his boot for the second, and rounding it off cutting back on the by-line and bending an outrageous shot into the top corner.
Euskera is a unique language, possibly the oldest in Europe and impenetrable to most, but it was easy to get the gist of the first press conference question, which ran: something, something, Kike Van Basten García.
Another question introduced him as a “working class hero” – yes, in English – while another asked if it was right somehow that he should get this hat-trick on 1 May, labour day. Yes, the coach José Luis Mendilibar said, and there’s something in that, something anti-hero about him: a cult hero in Middlesbrough and in Eibar too, partly because he has no designs on being either; no sign of an ego, just a look of suffering instead. There’s something attractively basic about him that disguises that he’s better than that. “You look at him and it’s ‘work, work, work’ but he’s scored some tremendous goals,” Mendilibar rightly said. Only two Spaniards have scored more this season.
And yet Mendilibar also described him as a “zoquete currela”: roughly, a big, thick, hard-working plank. Which is, he said, the embodiment of the team and exactly the way he likes him; exactly the way the rest do too. “Look,” the coach said, “he always gives you everything. Sometimes he makes mistakes, sometimes he’s too hurried, sometimes he tries to do too much but I prefer a player like that than someone I have to constantly tell to pull his finger out. Sometimes you could kill him for the things he does, but everything he does he does for the team. He gives you everything. This season he has been excellent; what’s been missing is the rest of the team. He’s not in the first division because of his goals, but his work. And he can stay there, because he’s a stubborn sod who won’t ever stop.”
That’s the question now. Can he stay there? Can they? On Saturday, Eibar clung to him and to that hope. As the final whistle approached, Cote – a mouthy so-and-so always in Kike’s ear – came to join him on the return to the pitch, sharing this with him. Anaitz Arbilla went to collect the match ball and proudly hand it over. Marko Dimitrovic came sprinting across the grass and leapt onto his back, holding him in a great big bear hug. From the balconies, they chanted his name: “Kike! Kike! Kike!” A little embarrassed, he waved back. His voice breaking, exhausted, he said: “I don’t know if it will be enough to save us.”
On a weekend where everyone suffered at both ends of the table, every game was tight and just about every minute tense. Spain is enjoying – if enjoying is the word – the tightest title race in memory, and it’s as close at the bottom. Witness this weekend: Huesca came out of the relegation zone with an 88th-minute own goal but slipped back in again the next day. Valladolid slipped into it and then pulled out again, their manager Sergio saying their equaliser against Betis “helps to build the aqueduct”, insisting: “We seem to be always fighting those windmill sails but we’ve shown we have soul.” Elche had a last-minute penalty against Atlético that would have pulled them out, but Fidel Chaves hit the post. And Getafe, Valencia and Levante lost, their cushions reduced.
Only Cádiz climbed to safety and only Eibar, who had seemed guaranteed to go down, won comfortably. Not only that, they beat direct rivals and the side that had won four out of four under new manager Javi Calleja. It had been “life or death” one headline had it and Eibar had just about clung onto life. “We’re on our way home now thinking it’s practically done,” said Cádiz manager Álvaro Cervera after his team beat Granada to climb to 40 points. Eibar wished they could say the same but at least they had given themselves a chance, a least if they do go they had left something behind, one local paper leading on: “Kike is hope.”
With four games to go, Eibar remain bottom on 26 points, Elche have 30, Huesca 30, Valladolid 31, Alavés 31, Getafe 34, Valencia 36 and Levante 38. “There are going to be punch-ups to the very last day,” Huesca coach Pacheta said.
“Right now, this win is worth a lot,” Mendilibar said, smiling as he was informed that Elche had just gone behind, then laughing when he was told that actually no, sorry, VAR has just ruled it out.
“If you look at the table, maybe not so much, but it is going to be good for everyone’s heads, to give us strength,” he said. “It has come a bit late; it’s still complicated, very difficult and we’re still at least two games from safety. But, look, the rest of them are not exactly letting off fireworks. We went 16 without a win and we still have a chance; that tells you they’re not great either. In previous seasons we have secured survival with two, three, four games to spare and it looks easy, but it’s not. We’re grateful to be here – and most of us are only here because SD Eibar are. We’re grateful to be at Eibar, grateful for the years we spent in primera, and we hope we can stay there. It’s still possible.”
“Of course it is,” Kike said, standing there with the ball under his arm. “We’ve done things wrong to be in this position but we won’t give up. I’m proud of every minute in primera, and I’m going to give my life out there.”
Quick Guide
La Liga results
Celta Vigo 2-0 Levante, Real Madrid 2-0 Osasuna, Huesca 1-0 Real Sociedad, Elche 0-1 Atlético Madrid, Eibar 3-0 Alavés, Valencia 2-3 Barcelona, Granada 0-1 Cádiz, Villarreal 1-0 Getafe, Real Valladolid 1-1 Real Betis
Talking points
“Now’s not the time for thinking; now’s a time for doing,” Diego Simeone said, which might be because what’s happening doesn’t really bear thinking about, the title race too tight, the tension too much, everyone on edge. Any moment is enough to end it, every detail seemingly decisive, and yet somehow no one quite takes that step – forwards or back. This weekend, Barcelona, Madrid and Atlético all won, but this could hardly be considered a triumphal march to the title. Instead, they all survive, still hanging in there somehow. Meanwhile, Sevilla steam up behind them.
Madrid had impressed in the first half against Osasuna, but needed a late-ish header from Éder Militão and an accidental finish from Casemiro to avoid another 0-0 and two more decisive points dropped. “A liberation,” Zinedine Zidane called it.
Barcelona, who came from a 2-1 home defeat against Granada in midweek, the league no longer in their own hands, trailed 1-0 at Mestalla, ready to shoot themselves in the other foot too, and needed an absurd Toni Lato handball to get them back into the game against Valencia on Sunday night. Even then, the penalty, missed by Leo Messi, needed three rebounds before it was put away. “We’re alive,” assistant coach Alfred Schreuder said.
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On Saturday afternoon, another even more ridiculous handball had left Atlético on the verge of losing the leadership of the league for the first time in five months. After an impressive first half, yet again they had dropped off in the second half, as if tying up, overwhelmed by the pressure, desperate to hang on to what they have – which is, in fairness, huge. And then it happened: Marcos Llorente dived and knocked the ball away, leaving Fidel Chaves on the spot in the last minute. It was a massive moment for Elche, who Chaves had said needed the points even more than Atlético, and for the title race.
The ball came flying back off the post, Simeone leaping about on the touchline, fitness coach Profe Ortega running onto the pitch, barely able to believe their luck. It was the third penalty in a row that Atlético have got away with. Oblak saved the last two; this time, as Simeone celebrated he turned and had a word with the post. “Thanks,” probably.