The Cultural Leonesa, from the Second Division, put between a rock and a hard place the , which in the end went to the quarterfinals after a duel in which they suffered greatly, with one less player shortly after the restart. And in the other clash, right from the start, there was a tense encounter between the team and Osasuna, which the team won. blue and whitewhich required a penalty shootout to reach the next round.
Almost at the same moment (minute 103) that Unai Gómez, from the fateful spot, scored 3-4 in the Kingdom of León, putting Athletic ahead in the match for the first time, the referee Soto Grado, in Anoeta, went to the VAR to see an action in which Javi Galán touched the ball with his hand. Penalty. Mikel Oyarzabal, a specialist from eleven meters, failed. Or rather, Aitor Fernández guessed it, which meant that the blue and white team had to continue fighting to get a ticket to the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey. Athletic, on the contrary, stopped suffering, something they had not achieved until that moment.
It is not being an easy season for the red and white team, the center of criticism for its poor performance in Spain. The bad image of the lions was such that they were forced to ask for forgiveness. A new setback, this time in the Cup, would have set off all the alarms in Ibaigane. And that is what was about to happen against a team from the second rung of Spanish football, which took the lead up to four times – the last one, of course, was not valid due to offside –.
Athletic went out of its way to leave behind a brave Cultural Leonesa who wrote an ode to football and who almost starred in one of those cup episodes that are remembered forever. Yayo González made people dream of the feat shortly after extra time began, but the coach Hernández Hernández, after seeing the play on the VAR monitor, annulled the goal. Immediately afterwards, he awarded a penalty on Nico Williams, which Unai Gómez did not waste. With suffering, but in quarters.
Almost 400 kilometers away, Real also had to go through a tough time to overcome the 0-2 deficit that the scoreboard showed in the 17th minute. They forced extra time with an agonizing goal from Igor Zubeldia. In the penalty shootout, the blue and white team was better. Unai Marrero, a substitute for Alex Remiro, became the local hero with his two saves from shots by Moncayola and Catena. Celebration in style for the Azpeitia goalkeeper. It was no wonder. Victory and classification that serve to confirm
