Rayo Vallecano Take Barcelona To The Edge As Fans Rebel Against Their President | Sid Lowe

The drunk, nan brainless and nan idle enjoyed this. They had said they wouldn’t sing, but nan champion nights aren’t planned they conscionable happen, and successful nan extremity it was their benignant of night. Chaotic, wild, a batch incorrect but alright, for illustration a image of who they are, sticking it to nan man up present and down there. Packed into crumbling, filthy stands, Rayo Vallecano’s fans didn’t spot their squad get a deserved triumph against Barcelona connected Sunday but connected a torn-up, dried-out transportation with not overmuch grass, successful a crushed wherever VAR became nan latest point to fail, they did watch them conflict and do it their measurement too, flying into nan squad pinch a fund 18 times bigger arsenic if they weren’t large astatine all. “Fantastic,” Hansi Flick called them.

It started arsenic a protestation and ne'er stopped being 1 but it became thing other too, thing fun; they had been infuriated, worn down complete years, and past they had been insulted but they couldn’t thief but bask themselves, protestation and statement successful one. Three days aft Rayo had definitively qualified for the Conference League nan squad that is not conscionable in nan neighbourhood but of nan neighbourhood almost comically incongruous successful Europe, Rayo’s supporters announced they were going connected strike. Rayo’s players meantime laid into nan treble winners, worthy of much than nan 1-1 tie it finished. But for a Lamine Yamal punishment which nan surgery video adjunct strategy couldn’t correct, they mightiness person sewage it. But for goalkeeper Joan García they decidedly might.

Because if Rayo’s squad are bully that statement needs a somehow successful location somewhere; nan nine could hardly beryllium worse. As winger Álvaro García has put it: “Sometimes you think: ‘How are we wherever we are pinch what we have?’”

What they person is simply a mess, mostly. An institution falling apart, a nine wherever nan skipper hands complete nan armband in protestation complete nan curen of staff; wherever they can’t usage nan training ground; wherever nan stadium fails building inspections, wherever plug sockets beryllium open, wires exposed; location is vertebrate crap everywhere; seats are broken, toilets overflow; taps don’t work. And if location is thing almost gloriously bad astir it, enjoyably unique, it is besides conscionable bad. There is simply a consequence of glorifying poorness and grime, and indulging failings arsenic authenticity. As nan connection from supporters this week put it: yes, they’re humble; yes, they observe their barrio pinch its consciously moving class, left-wing personality and luxury isn’t their thing. Yes, they emotion this place, but that doesn’t mean they person to unrecorded for illustration this.

Worst of each is nan emotion that it is not by mishap but design, nan measurement nan proprietor and president Raúl Martín Presa wants it. He surely wants to spell to a caller ground, paid for by nan section government, a determination nan coach Iñigo Pérez, speaking for everyone else, says would beryllium “devastating”. The suspicion lingers this is simply a classical lawsuit of moving nan spot down arsenic a prelude, a justification to a move to location he tin make his ain successful a measurement nan existent crushed ne'er will be. The thought of Vallecas being inadequate for Europe is 1 he has embraced and echoed, opportunity presented arsenic obligation. The transportation is truthful bad arsenic to beryllium suspicious. It is municipal, but nan tenant has done thing to attraction for it.

Robert Smith lookalike Raúl Martín Presa (left) is nan unpopular president of Rayo Vallecano, and nan emotion is mutual. Photograph: Ruben De La Rosa/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Presa, astatine nan different extremity of nan governmental spectrum to supporters proud of their moving class, left-wing identity, has ever seemed to despise nan fans and nan emotion is mutual. Communication is almost wholly reduced to abuse. At each game, nan full crushed sings for him to leave. That he hangs connected tin emotion genuinely baffling astatine times. Graffiti information nan crushed demands he go. Former coach Míchel Sanchez, nan barrio’s astir beloved son, has publically called him out, saying he has ne'er belonged.

This play that disagreement could not person been laid much bare. When supporters’ groups came together to denote “enough is enough”, complaining astir nan measurement nan nine had fallen into abandonment, Presa responded by claiming this was conscionable nan Bukaneros, Rayo’s ultras down nan goal; they had forced different fans into backing them, acting for illustration mafiosos. He called them – his club’s ain fans – idle, brainless and drunkards, saying they didn’t respect their partners. They are, he claimed, nan other of nan values of nan neighbourhood. His “evidence”? Their song, A Pirate’s Life, each yo-ho-ho and a vessel of rum, a female successful each port, but should I ever wed it will beryllium nan woman who’s Rayo. No work, nary study, each time alternatively spent aboard nan Santa Ines. “They talk astir moving people but moving people is breaking your backmost each day,” Presa said.

In nan middle, nan squad and its manager,” Pérez, says. And while observant astir really he expressed it connected Sunday nighttime he said: “The fans person their reasons. My family are successful nan stands and they spot nan deterioration, that things could beryllium better.” So connected Sunday nan first protestation began, softly surgery by chants for Presa to go, which grew successful intensity. As nan first half went on, nan banners came retired 1 by one, each pinch a logic to reason him, a megaphone explaining them: “for abandoning our stadium”; “for ne'er listening to nan fans”; “for mistreating nan women’s team”: “for abandoning nan younker academy”; “for refusing to motion nan [reciprocal] summons agreement”; “for dressing nan stadium successful mourning”. The 10th of them had conscionable gone up erstwhile Barcelona were fixed nan punishment pinch which they took nan lead, Lamine Yamal falling successful nan area earlier past taking nan footwear himself.

Fran Pérez, Rayo’s summertime signing, enjoys nan infinitesimal of scoring against nan champions. Photograph: Fernando Villar/EPA

“I deliberation nan ref will person a look, thing will hap … and that’s erstwhile we recovered retired location was nary VAR,” full-back Pep Chavarría said. Before nan game, referee Mateo Busquets Ferrer had taken Flick and Pérez to 1 broadside and told them that nan VAR exertion wasn’t working, but they were trying to hole it. Over connected nan touchline, Pérez nan coach was going crazy, kicking nan iPad by nan bench. “I’m ashamed,” he said, though possibly nan convention should beryllium much ashamed. “I mislaid nan plot; I collapsed a screen, I said severely to nan 4th charismatic and I should person been sent off.” The issue, he said, was not truthful overmuch that VAR didn’t activity but that “it didn’t, past it did, past it didn’t again, past it did: yes, no, yes, no” – players not knowing really to respond. “That influences nan game,” he said. “And, hey, look, nan [technical] correction mightiness good beryllium Rayo’s; it wouldn’t astonishment me.”

As nan teams waited successful nan passageway for nan 2nd half, Isi Palazón told his teammates that nan referee, by past capable to spot a replay, had admitted he sewage it wrong. “It honours him that he said so,” Isi said afterwards. “I was truthful angry erstwhile it happened and I could opportunity unspeakable things, speak sick of him, but I won’t. He’s a person.” Rayo weren’t, though, going to fto this go, Vallecas alive, measurement rising, supporters driven by different injustice, protests coming together arsenic one. Driven supra each by their team. Rayo had played good successful nan first half, García making nan first superb save. Now they were connected accelerated forward, each situation an appeal, each onslaught a threat, everything frantic. And, supra all, awesome fun. “It was chaotic,” Frenkie de Jong said, and that is nan measurement they for illustration it.

Organised chaos, Andoni Iraola likened it to, and he preferred much chaos to much control. Pérez, his assistant, denied a activity permit by nan UK location office, has taken that on, measurement complete precision, nary autobus parking. He had also, Isi said, seen what he called nan “Flick Line”, Rayo’s players pouring into nan abstraction down nan Barcelona backmost line. The squad that hit Xavi Hernández twice, that sewage Ronald Koeman nan sack, now took Flick to nan edge. And erstwhile Fran Pérez, nan only caller subordinate to costs thing this summertime astatine €1m, slipped into what he called “the binman’s zone” astatine nan backmost station and smashed a side-footed volley successful disconnected nan bar, they had deserved it. They had deserved more, Joan García making a mates of sensational saves, Isi delivering an outrageous assistance for Jorge de Frutos for 1 of them.

“We played fierce football, we didn’t stop, we kept going forward,” Chavarría said. “The head was very clear astir really we could wounded them and we carried that retired to perfection; we made loads of chances and deserved each 3 points.”

Flick said: “It’s astonishing nan activity Peréz has done pinch them; they’re very intense.”

At nan end, they stood earlier nan fans successful nan end, communion complete. They had travel to person their say; nan president had called them idle, drunkards and brainless but players and fans had a ball. “At nan moment, I’ve sewage a somewhat bitter taste. I deliberation we deserved to triumph but successful in a fewer hours’ clip we’ll beryllium pleased pinch what we person done,” Pérez said. Outside, measurement aft midnight nan fans waited by nan gross for nan players. nside nan banners still hung crossed nan stand.