Espanyol suffers its sorrows as a family

The toxicity. With 39 points, virtually saved, Espanyol’s season has entered that usual toxic circle, always spring, when there are no qualifying goals and the games are sentences, like the one against Rayo Vallecano this rainy and cold Thursday in Barcelona. Sorrows are used to suffering in the family, and this was the case at an RCDE Stadium in which one of the worst tickets of the season was recordedjust 11,873 faithful, who were protagonists for their whistles and chants, as were those empty seats, the absences in a season in which (with the initial exceptions of the pandemic) the average attendance will be the worst since 2009, the year of the opening of the stadium.

“Rufete vete ya”. In the 12th minute of the game, the Youth started with two protests that summarize the scandal of the week uncovered by The confidential: “Rubiales go now” and “corruption in the federation”. A less populated but louder and more critical stand than two weeks ago against Celta. Little by little he stopped looking at the mote in another’s eye to see the beam in his own and was emboldened with a loud “Rufete vete ya” that started the Curve and that spread throughout the stadium, with the always complementary “resignation directive”, surely unnoticed by Chen Yansheng, ten thousand kilometers away. An unbreathable atmosphere, far from what the season has been at the RCDE Stadium, where Espanyol has forged its salvation and has added 31 points. But history repeats itself. It’s the neverending story.

Without soul. It also seemed like a never-ending game that Espanyol got off to a good start against Rayo, trying to send to the sound of Darder and with Vilhena’s mobility, but that little by little got stuck, annulled by his kryptonite, because Iraola’s team has beaten Vicente Moreno the last four games. It was Espanyol from more to less, unable to generate danger after 0-1, with only one shot from RdT to the post as a clearer occasion. There wasn’t that push or that need to win against a Rayo that celebrated the victory like a title: they won four months later, they came close to salvation.

From the NGO to the VAR. Espanyol continued to feed its status as an aspirin team, as an NGO in the League, which even continues without luck with the VAR, which validated Sergi Guardiola’s goal by drawing a line as inconclusive as the alleged hand of Raúl de Tomás against Atlético, in which, Although the player admitted later, it was not clearly seen in any of the images. He is denied everything to Espanyol.

The Calvary. Easter is over but not the ordeal of a Espanyol that enters the most dangerous spiral of the season. The cartridge runs out and everything to come will be worse until the future of the next course is clarified and illusions are renewed. Because the football fan is an expert in restarting and in believing that the umpteenth time is the charm until the following spring arrives again and he realizes that on a rainy Thursday in April he finds himself in a Espanyol-Rayo without many incentives. And the circle that is actually a Ferris wheel does not stop turning.