The ascent was 11 meters

Suspense. Restless and dissatisfied by nature, only in this way does one progress in life, the Espanyol fan would surely have signed a draw before the Almería game that kept him ten points behind the third, 11 if the particular 'goal average' is added that is for the parrots. And that's exactly how things remain in the absence of seven days, only 21 points at stake. That is, with an ascent that is already caressed with the fingertips. However, with football on the surface he even knew little because Espanyol had the virtual and highly tied ascent, but only 11 meters separated him. Those of the penalty that would have given him the victory and that Raúl de Tomás missed. Curious that the creator of 1-1, the author of 20 targets this season and that stratospheric target against Almería itself, prevents the parrots from uncorking the cava. We will have to wait. If it is not with a certain suspense, it would not be Espanyol.

Moreno had a plan. With the heads and tails of Óscar Gil and David López, the first recovered from his shoulder dislocation and the youth squad limping from his hamstring problems, Vicente Moreno had a plan. Conservative, tense, squeezing the balls long and with Dimata as a buoy (not that it was water polo, although the person in charge of irrigation surely overreached) and as a magnet for fouls. The initial idea consisted of waiting for Almería to make a mistake, which for something was the most needy, although also the most used to combining, the Second that gives the most passes, over Sporting and Espanyol itself. And so, the minutes went by, that the tie was also worth …

Morlanes, 'parakeet'. The paradox of the parakeet approach was that Sadiq, isolated at the tip of the attack, ended up scoring with a ball on his back, Espanyol's own medicine. Until then, and with Makaridze at the opposite end watching the time go by, the action with more sauce of the first half had been carried out by Morlanes. Naturally, not that CEO of Espanyol from when the Copa del Rey was conquered, which has just turned 15 years old, but the midfielder of Almería, who returned after serving a sanction. He took his arm out for a walk and touched the ball in the area. A hand that neither the referee nor the VAR saw as a penalty, just as on another day it would have been decreed. Or in the same way that Raúl de Tomás did later, much lighter. Because if we have learned something this season, it is that the referee's criteria move like the wind rocks a weather vane.

'Wild card' for Raúl de Tomás. The confidence of a team is measured in how long it takes to react to a goal received. And Espanyol's in this final stretch of the season is through the roof. The one who never had self-esteem problems is Raúl de Tomás, who made 1-1 with so many cuts in the small area as if he were in the central circle, who gave the goal to Dimata and who celebrated it as if he had scored it, with the follow-up of your peers. Good symptom. Perhaps he would deserve a ‘wild card’ for LaLiga to tell him as his own, which would boost the ‘top scorer’. A target also to claim a 4-4-2 that so many joys is in store for parrots.

The light went out. But in a few minutes De Tomás went from joy to disappointment, missing his third penalty in as many consecutive days. The first, in Albacete, he converted after Tomeu Nadal rejected. The second, against Leganés, was a Panenka-style shot that crashed off the crossbar. And this time, in the Mediterranean Games, he threw it at the right hand of Giorgi Makaridze, who guessed his intention and who also stopped his first maximum penalty as Almería goalkeeper. The light went out to RdT, as capable of a marvel in movement as of marching in static from 11 meters, and that head would run into the local goalkeeper almost at the end. Soccer mysteries.