{"id":643776,"date":"2026-05-15T01:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643776\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T01:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:45:09","slug":"la-ligas-relegation-race-ignites-as-espanyol-end-143-day-winless-streak-espanyol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643776\/","title":{"rendered":"La Liga\u2019s relegation race ignites as Espanyol end 143-day winless streak | Espanyol"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 143 days and many more sleepless nights Manolo Gonz\u00e1lez was liberated, if only for a little while. In the 92nd minute of the 19th game of 2026, something amazing happened: Espanyol<\/a> won and Espanyol went wild. A goal up against Athletic Club, a late Gorka Guruzeta header had shaken them more than the post it hit, a familiar fatalism refusing to leave, and they were desperately hanging on to what they had now and had lost too many times before, whistling for this suffering to finally end, when at last they could let go. \u201cYou have to be strong in life but, bloody hell, we all have limits,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez said, and they had reached theirs but now, on a Wednesday evening in May, they were released.<\/p>\n

Ramon Terrats, a boyhood Espanyol, nodded the ball on. Kike Garc\u00eda, the only member of the squad born in the 80s and a man with a bit of the 80s about him, a 36-year-old, 6ft 1in, 12-stone striker they call the \u201clabourer of goals\u201d, a sub who had only been out there six minutes, ran on to it. Keeping his head, he guided a shot past Unai Sim\u00f3n so everyone else could lose theirs. The clock said 91.06. The scoreboard said 2-0. The table said: 14th, 42 points, 11 wins. And 29,943 people said: argrhjrfujhkngsafkjhfskljdzrogjdgixjkgjhlkbxcfh. As for Gonz\u00e1lez, he broke down and cried.<\/p>\n

Espanyol\u2019s manager had been climbing the wall. As the goal went in, he climbed the bench to share this moment with the family, who are always there and who watch games from the front row right behind him. He hugged staff and players so hard he could have broken their ribs, and, tears in his eyes, empty, he thumped his chest, put his hand on his heart and blew a kiss into the crowd. Then he slumped into his seat and sobbed. \u201cI felt a great liberation,\u201d he said after. \u201cPeople don\u2019t release what the suffering has been like inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

That number in the win column had not changed since the last time Espanyol played Athletic Club five months ago, catastrophe coming ever closer. No team had ever started a year this badly: 18 inexplicable matches had passed in 2026 and Espanyol had not won any of them; they hadn\u2019t drawn many of them either. Fourth in October, fifth at the turn of the year and still sixth as February ended, living off their best ever start, their European dream became a recurring nightmare. Six of 54 points meant that at kick-off in week 36, a single goal scored kept them from the relegation zone. It had reached the point, Pere Milla admitted, where \u201cyou think you\u2019ll never win again\u201d, where \u201cif my baby came and played us, we would lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manolo Gonz\u00e1lez cut an emotional figure on the touchline after his side\u2019s long-awaited win. Photograph: Alejandro Garc\u00eda\/EPA<\/p>\n

Just not if Athletic came instead. \u201cWe didn\u2019t deserve all that,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez said, but they deserved this. Now it was done, if not yet done in a season with the tightest, most demanding relegation battle anyone can remember, in which three points separate 12th and 19th. Even Ernesto Valverde, the coach of the ninth-placed Athletic team they had just beaten, said he was worried that they could still go down. \u201cWe can\u2019t be forgiven for the last 18 games and it has cost us the world to win,\u201d Milla said. \u201cIt\u2019s a relief to win, but we haven\u2019t done anything yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milla had scored a superb volley and Garc\u00eda had secured the win, a little room to breathe before the next battle. Asked if these had been the hardest days of his professional life, Gonz\u00e1lez said: \u201cI would say almost of my life generally. After the death of my uncle, it\u2019s been the worst period.\u201d<\/p>\n

A manager\u2019s life is some life, his especially<\/a>. A man who would wear his heart on his sleeve if there was a sleeve big enough. When he was a kid Gonz\u00e1lez would not talk if he lost and his mum, Dora, knew not to even try. Nicknamed Stoichkov for his temperament \u2013 not his talent \u2013 he always felt his head was the reason he did not make it, although injuries did not help either. When he tore his cruciate at 19, playing in Primera Catalana, the opportunity had probably already passed but he kept going in amateur football. Coached by a man called \u201cPuchi\u201d, an almost legendary character in local football, there was dynamism, togetherness, lessons learned even from a level where the bingo on the bus was as competitive as the matches. Every Friday they would all meet up at his mum\u2019s Galician restaurant on Valencia Street, Gonz\u00e1lez arriving on the back of his friend Alex\u2019s scooter, a 49cc Derbi Vamos.<\/p>\n

By then Gonz\u00e1lez was already doing his badges, becoming a coach, and some of that spirit would be taken with him \u2013 the same corner routines would be too \u2013 but it was not much of a career, so he had a day job. If day is the right word. It was not until 2018 that he asked for a leave of absence from driving the Tusa bus from Badalona to Barcelona and back, on the 5am run or the night shift. When he got the Espanyol post in the second division in 2024, promoted from the B team, a huge opportunity was also an obligation. If they had not have gone up, he knew, he was dead and so was the club. If they did not then survive in Primera, ditto. This year was supposed to be different, but here they were again.<\/p>\n

Kike Garc\u00eda was on the pitch for six minutes before his late goal for Espanyol. Photograph: Pedro Salado\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Things can change fast in football \u2013 \u201cone day you\u2019re John Travolta, the next you\u2019re Manolo Gonz\u00e1lez\u201d, Espanyol\u2019s coach says \u2013 but no one could have imagined or explained this. \u201cI don\u2019t have a clue about football: it\u2019s incomprehensible that they had gone 18 without a win,\u201d Valverde said. \u201cIt was as if we were the worst team in the world, losing 20-0 every week, but it wasn\u2019t like that,\u201d Milla said. They were not that bad, not half-a-season-without-a-win bad, but they just could not win. This was worthy of study, so University of Vic in Catalonia did just that, a sports psychologist conducting classes on Espanyol<\/a> and their mental block, choking under pressure. And yet they were not that bad either: it was not like you the team was obviously terrified, totally tied up, and nor is the tension that unusual.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideLa Liga resultsShow<\/p>\n

Alav\u00e9s 1-0 Barcelona, Celta Vigo 2-3 Levante, Espanyol 2-0 Athletic Bilbao, Getafe 3-1 Mallorca, Osasuna 1-2 Atl\u00e9tico Madrid, Real Betis 2-1 Elche, Villarreal 2-3 Sevilla<\/p>\n

Thursday Valencia v Rayo Vallecano (6pm, all times BST), Girona v Real Sociedad (7pm), Real Madrid v Real Oviedo (8.30pm)<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

This is all of them, in a relegation fight where the pressure is intense and only escaped for so long, the Sarlacc pit always liable to pull you back in, those clambering out of it likely to as well. \u201cI have a friend who says: \u2018How comfortable you were at home and you go and get yourself involved in this madness,\u2019\u201d the Sevilla coach Luis Garc\u00eda says. Garc\u00eda, who was entrusted to save a Sevilla side<\/a> that, he says, were \u201creally hurt\u201d, likens this relegation battle to the cruise ship cabin in the Marx brothers film A Night at the Opera, 17 people crammed into a two-birth: with two games to go 13 teams could still mathematically go down, Europe and relegation are five points apart, eight teams are within three points of the two remaining relegation places, and even 43 points might not be enough. No one is safe, even when they think they are, and no one is entirely sunk. Apart from Oviedo<\/a>, obviously.<\/p>\n

Not even Levante, who spent six months in the relegation zone and came out of it on Tuesday night, after twice coming from behind to secure a second successive 3-2 win, completing a run where they have lost just one in six and two in 11, and would be in a Champions League place if the table had started when the coach Luis Castro did<\/a>. They then slipped back into the relegation zone again on Wednesday night after Sevilla won 3-2, coming back from 2-0 down at Villarreal to make it three wins in three \u2013 as many as they had collected in the previous 13 \u2013 and climbed all the way from the relegation zone to 10th in three days. After Alav\u00e9s kept a clean sheet for the first time in 20 games against a Barcelona team that failed to score for the first time in 54 of them. And after Espanyol, who watched in terror as everyone else started winning, finally got a victory of their own, players and supporters in tears when at last it was over.<\/p>\n

Akor Adams scored the winner against Villarreal to move Sevilla up to 43 points. Photograph: Jos\u00e9 Jordan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

All of which leaves Girona in 19th<\/a>, Levante in 18th, Mallorca in 17th<\/a>, and Elche in 16th all on 39 points, 15th-placed Alav\u00e9s on 40, Espanyol, Valencia and Osasuna in 14th, 13th and 12th respectively on 42 and 11th and 10th placed Rayo and Sevilla on 43. \u201cA heart attack every game,\u201d as Garc\u00eda puts it, pleased for the players he said were in tears two weeks ago. \u201cNobody thinks we deserve to go down,\u201d said Castro, as Levante fans waited at the airport to greet his team home, but he knows they still might. \u201cFootball\u2019s cruel because tomorrow we have to think about the next match,\u201d said the Alav\u00e9s coach Quique S\u00e1nchez Flores after a night that was historic but not quite enough.<\/p>\n

But tomorrow is another day, and it looks different now, hope which is also what kills you, replacing the hurt. \u201cIt\u2019s been incredible, infernal,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez said. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to explain: maybe in a few years I\u2019ll be able to but not now. It\u2019s been very, very hard. There are people in there playing for their futures. Since I\u2019ve been here it has been life or death, leaping with no safety net. My family have suffered with me; they\u2019re the ones you think of, the ones who see you struggling every day. You have to be strong but, bloody hell, we all have limits. Tonight we lifted a huge weight off our backs. This is a huge shot of energy, bloody hell. I haven\u2019t slept a lot lately, but that\u2019s a coach\u2019s job. Maybe tonight I can sleep right through, the way God intended.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 143 days and many more sleepless nights Manolo Gonz\u00e1lez was liberated, if only for a little while.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-643776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}