“I was angry, we scored nice goals that didn’t count. I didn’t see the offsides, but the referee told me that the decisions were fair. I have to accept it,” González was quoted as saying by the website of the Spanish sports daily Marca.
Español, whose best players included the Czech midfielder Alex Král, looked like a towel at first on the ground of the favourites. After two goals from Dani Olmo and Raphinha, he was losing 0:3 after half an hour. At that moment, a taunt came from the home sectors: Segunda. So the second league.
“It was not pleasant to listen to. We are Español and we can’t make fools of ourselves. I was really mixed up, I raised my voice at the players during the break. I told them either they start playing 100 per cent and walk out of the game with their heads held high or screw it up and we get eight wickets. In the end, we showed a positive face in the second half, we were able to reduce. If we had played like that the whole match, the result would have been different,” González pointed out.
Bad luck also deprived his team of a more favorable result. Both disallowed goals were preceded by very close, centimeter offsides. For the first goal by half a foot, for the second barely ten centimeters. The only recognized goal of the visitors was a shot by Javi Puado from the 63rd minute.
Olmo, the author of two goals, became the hero of the match. The Spanish European champion is gaining minutes and form after injury. “I feel good, I had a great desire to come back and help the team again on the field,” said Olmo.
Barcelona has had a fantastic fortnight, during which they successively knocked out Sevilla (5:1), Bayern (4:1) in the Champions League, destroyed Real (4:0) in El Clásico, and then beat Español on Sunday. “We have had a great season. We knew that Espanyol would give their best, that the match would be tough. But we managed him,” rejoiced Olmo.
The weekend round of La Liga was played in the shadow of the devastating floods in Valencia, which have so far claimed hundreds of lives. There were proposals to postpone it, but due to the minimum of replacement dates, this did not happen.
“Maybe this match shouldn’t have happened. I would like to send support and words of encouragement to all those affected by the elements. As a club we will help however we can. I urge others to get involved because this is a tragedy,” Olmo said.
