Alvaro Romero had just scored the biggest goal of his life, against Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey, when he asked for a change of career.
“I’m actually a journalist, so if there are any newspapers out there that want to hire me, I am available,” said Romero, the 23-year-old forward of third-tier club Unionistas de Salamanca, who had briefly looked capable of knocking the 13-time European champions out of the cup.
Romero’s goal, a curved finish at the end of a slaloming run through Madrid’s multimillion-euro midfield, remains perhaps the standout moment of a reformed and revitalised Copa del Rey that has provoked a joyous response in Spain.
Unionistas last month hosted Real Madrid at their 4,000-capacity Las Pistas, only six years after the club formed out of the ashes of UD Salamanca, who had just gone out of business.
“I was surprised,” Unionistas coach Jabi Luaces said after Madrid won 3-1. “When I saw their team, we saw they respected us and it made me feel proud.”
Romero was asked which Madrid player’s shirt he wanted.
“I would take them all,” he said.
Unionistas had the chance to play at home against the most famous club in the world not because of luck, but a change in the rules that says that any lower division team now hosts automatically.
Second legs have been scrapped too, except in the semi-finals, and there are no replays, with matches decided on the night through extra-time and penalties.
It means that the likelihood of an upset is increased, as bigger clubs with deeper squads are denied the opportunity to field youngsters before finishing the job at the second attempt.
It also ensures that close contests go the distance. Today, Mirandes, sitting 11th in Segunda, is to play Villarreal at their Estadio Municipal de Anduva after beating RC Celta de Vigo after extra-time and then Sevilla.
“It is a format in which nobody can be complacent and those that are brave enough to gamble can win the trophy,” Madrid newspaper AS wrote.
Mirandes is to be the only team outside the top flight in the last eight, but those that have advanced have survived the kind of contests full of emotion and atmosphere that made the result almost feel secondary.
Barcelona needed two late goals to come from behind and beat UD Ibiza, while Valencia were taken to penalties by Cultural y Deportiva Leonesa, who, in the previous round, had knocked out Atletico Madrid.
“In my seven years in the first team, I have never experienced anything like this,” Atletico’s Saul Niguez said.
Sacrifices have been made.
Lower teams playing at home kills the dream of walking out at Camp Nou or the Santiago Bernabeu, and also denies those same clubs a larger slice of revenue.
Next year, 24 clubs, including eight from Europe, are to play in an expanded Club World Cup in China, while schemes for expanded UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League formats would push domestic cups even further down the pecking order.
Liverpool are the reigning Club World Cup champions and their manager Juergen Klopp has said that neither he nor his first-team players would attend their FA Cup replay yesterday against third-tier opponent Shrewsbury Town.
Yet the Copa del Rey reforms have shown that it is possible for a simpler kind of drama, that all clubs can enjoy.
“Barca have La Liga and the glamor of the Champions League, but the cup is a level playing field and a chance for us to bring them down to earth,” Ibiza coach Pablo Alfaro said before their 2-1 loss last month. “It’s one night, this is our dream and that’s what I’ve said to the boys, that it’s the most amazing competition for clubs like us.”
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