The emotional implosion of Las Palmas

One of the typical topical stories in American cinema is that of the father who does not act as such. Throughout the film he will try to improve his relationship with his children until reaching the climax when his son has a baseball game or a school theater performance. Ideal time to demonstrate the change. The father with all his backpack of nonsense and amendments wants to attend. But something happens, his determination is tested and he doesn’t arrive on time. Chen hope is lost, it appears, there is reconciliation and redemption.

This Saturday against Zaragoza, Las Palmas was absent at the beginning of the game as the repeat offender of the movies. And the fans, were disappointed as the film was repeated. Leaving innocuous the litany that has been accompanying for a few months: “If we want to be on top…”.

With no apparent solution of continuity, the Gran Canaria seemed to jump to La Romareda dragging the same spirit after the first goal conceded against Burgos. An emotional state that lasted almost 90 minutes, which were from the 48th minute of the previous day to the 46th of this one.

And like that father in search of redemption, Las Palmas appeared, late but it did. He managed to take control of the game and equalize a contest to which he had entered 45 minutes late. And the team to which he clings, and more belief than reality, the goal of achieving promotion began to be outlined again. That hope that says, if he played like this, if he kept up the level, if he didn’t make mistakes. Too many conditionals at this point in the film for an applicant.

However, unlike the redeemed father, Las Palmas tore the penca away with twenty minutes remaining and left the game, as if to say, ‘really, he’s not my son’ or ‘what a boring play’. Because in two minutes everything changed, from 67 to 69. “It was a difficult moment for Zaragoza due to the good work of Las Palmas,” said García Pimienta at the end of the match. And it is that again an error triggers derivatives that end in a goal against. With the aggravating circumstance that the failure, on this occasion, was at the rival gate and ended up generating a state of mind that cost a bit at the yellow gate. “We have had such a clear chance of 1-2 that I think that in 99 percent of the cases it would have been a goal and it conditions the match”. And it is that Hernani’s mistake spurred the locals who would need two minutes to get back into the lead.

It is that reiterated “condition” that García Pimienta speaks of, it is the one that has been determining the yellow destiny. And he also hid in the subtext of the reaction of a resigned Jonathan Viera after the conclusion of the game. “Again a concentration error in both areas” and after those mistakes that end in a rival goal “everything is more complicated”. That repeated conditioning factor that has marked many of the games in Las Palmas and that is gradually moving away, more in spirit than in points, promotion.

There is talk that there are teams that you have to beat several times during a match. Mythified team that wake up in their wake. Well, Las Palmas this season is the antithesis of that. A team that loses several times each game due to its mistakes and that repeats an all too common pattern: error, goal against, recovery of the game, (maybe) goal for, rude error, goal against.

A cycle that at the beginning of the season was short. But as the days go by, reaching fluidity again in the meeting takes longer and longer, if it comes at all. It seems that each new error has a factorial multiplication effect. A slab that has haunted Las Palmas since the start of the campaign and has turned the team’s jaw into glass. The energy transmitted to each failure has evolved from rebellion to resignation. It is no longer just a game, skills or proposal but emotional state.