The soccer team that forgot to play on weekends

Little could the followers of Espanyol imagine, when the saturday december 11 bordered on heart attack in the crazy victory at the RCDE Stadium against Levante (4-3), which would take more than two months to see his team again on weekends. Family time. The one with the children. That of football, from the First Division to the most amateur. Chain the parakeet team six days of the League without playing a single Saturday or Sunday.

That series of matches will end next Monday, February 7 in San Mamés against an Athletic A club that also knows something about playing a kind of League parallel to that of the rest of the clubs, in a match that, to top it off, should have been played three days earlier, on Friday, but which was moved due to the schedule of the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey by the lions, on Thursday 3, against Real Madrid. But parakeet ordeal, of dates and rebound, of results, started long before. It even includes the Cup, except for the round of 16 tie, in Son Moix, which was on a Saturday and led to elimination.

It was in Sweep, and in an unmitigated defeat against Celtic (3-1), where Espanyol began to say goodbye to the weekends, the friday december 17. Also on Friday, in fact in the last day of the year, in the only match in the entire LaLiga that was scheduled for December 31, the Blue and Whites visited Valencia (1-2), in their only victory to date away from home. and until the monday 10 they would not play a league clash again, at home against Elche (1-2). The visit to Cádiz (2-2) occurred on a weekday, and therefore On tuesday, while the last game before the break was repeated on Friday, with the visit of Betis (1-4) to the RCDE Stadium.

Four points out of 15 possible Espanyol has added so far in their exile on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, which will be seven out of 18 at most if they are able to beat Athletic at La Catedral. Because on the next day the parakeets will finally return to the weekend, although for reasons of greater cause, as is its rival: it is the Barcelona that always plays on Saturday or Sunday. On this occasion, the Cornellà-El Prat derby will be held on Sunday, February 13 at 9:00 p.m., which is perhaps the most difficult time for family audiences to fit in on the weekend. Not even with those.