Alberto Moleiro prevented Ander Barrenetxea from becoming the hero again. If last week, at El Sadar, the Real youth player scored a great goal from the center of the field to certify the victory of the blue and white team against Osasuna, against Villarreal, it made Anoeta explode with joy when there were barely four minutes left. He spectacularly executed a free kick that slipped into Luiz Junior’s same corner. It was a tie at two. But, when the referee was already looking at the clock to whistle the end of the game, the figure of the Tenerife footballer emerged to give Villarreal the three points. A minute earlier, Oluwasegi was about to do the same, but was prevented by Turrientes, who received the affection of his teammates as if he were a savior. The blow for the txuri urdin came a few seconds later.
2
Álex Remiro, Jon Martín, Jon Aramburu, Aritz Elustondo, Sergio Gómez, Brais Méndez (Mikel Goti, min. 83), Carlos Soler (Arsen Zakharyan, min. 76), Gonçalo Guedes (Gorka Carrera, min. 76), Takefusa Kubo (Beñat Turrientes, min. 84), Jon Gorrotxategi and Umar Sadiq (Ander Barrenetxea, min. 55)
3
Luiz Júnior, Rafa Marín, Alfonso Pedraza (Sergi Cardona, min. 77), Juan Foyth, Santiago Mouriño, Santi Comesaña, Alberto Moleiro, Pape Gueye (Dani Parejo, min. 67), Tajon Buchanan (Ilias Akhomach, min. 78), Ayoze Pérez (Tani Oluwaseyi, min. 85) and Gerard Moreno (Georges Mikautadze, min. 67)
Goals
0-1 min. 30: Ayoze Pérez. 0-2 min. 56: Alberto Moleiro. 1-2 min. 59: Carlos Soler. 2-2 min. 86: Barrenetxea. 2-3 min. 94: Alberto Moleiro
Referee César Soto Grado
yellow cards
Pape Alassane Gueye (min. 19), Sadiq (min. 41), Ayoze Pérez (min. 46), Moleir Alberto (min. 48), Alfonso Pedraza (min. 66), Jon Martín (min. 68), Barrenetxa (min. 69). Júnior (mine 73), Juan Foyth (min. 89)
There was nothing to suggest that when Anoeta’s scoreboard showed 0-2 with 34 minutes remaining, the game was going to end the way it did. Two blows, one from Ayoze and the other from Moleiro, heralded a very sweet end to the game for the ‘yellow submarine’. But nothing could be further from the truth. Soler put the ball in the same corner of the goal defended by Luiz Junior. That’s how far the Portuguese nationalized Brazilian goalkeeper had to stretch to deflect, a few minutes later, Guedes’ shot. The visiting goalkeeper also had to work hard to avoid the Portuguese goal in a later play. It was the last service to the cause of a footballer who is beginning to remember, very much, the best Guedes that has been seen in the League.
But. Of course, Real’s best footballer at this point in the season had to appear. In fact, his substitution was surprising. But a few minutes on the field were enough for him to show that Ander Barrenetxera, today, is indisputable in this Real Sociedad. In a free kick, an art in which he had never shone, he was able to place the ball in the same corner. Anoeta lived an ecstasy, which ended in a kind of Greek tragedy with an absolute protagonist: Alberto Moleiro.
There is no better example of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. In fact, it is difficult to explain such a radical change. While in the Champions League, Marcelino’s team, for the moment, has been unable to win any game and its passage to the next round has become a chimera, in the home competition, in LaLiga, Villarreal is determined to become a strong candidate to break the hegemony of Real Madrid or Barcelona. Villarreal could not have had a better response to the setback suffered at the Signal Iduna Park against Dortmund and it served, incidentally, to put an end to the attempted reaction that Real Sociedad had been leading, which, of course, did not give in until the 95th minute.
