Like pretty much everyone else in Cádiz, David Barral is a comedian who says he plays football in his spare time. The difference is that Barral plays his football in the first division and, thanks to him, next season Levante Unión Deportiva might still do so too. Born down in the southernmost tip of Spain, where the wind whips in from the straits, where there’s freedom in the air, and a bit more besides, where the carnival matters more than anywhere on the peninsula, and where the accents are thickest and the jokes funniest, Barral grew up quite fancying the idea of becoming a policeman. Instead, he’s spent the last 13 years playing football: 30 games a season every season, but probably none quite like this.
Thirty-one now, Barral won promotion as a kid at Castilla, where he played alongside Roberto Soldado, Álvaro Negredo, Borja Valero and Esteban Granero, and twice he was called up to Real Madrid’s first team squad but he never played for them. He injured Jonathan Woodgate in an infamous, ill-fated practice game imposed by a president under pressure, pulling away as Woodgate pulled up. He headed off to Sporting Gijón for six seasons, where the late and loved Manolo Preciado marked him for life, and where he won promotion. And he returned to the Bernabéu to sign, beating Iker Casillas in 2010 and kneeling on the turf to “write” his name in the grass.
It was a dream, he said. But relegation followed and then a year in Turkey at Orduspor. “It wasn’t a good experience,” he admitted, “there was no alcohol and the food was terrible.” Back he came to Spain, joining Levante, the club with the same name as wind that whips in past Gibraltar and along the coast, tearing up the sea and propelling kite surfers across the water in Tarifa. And as always, he threw himself into it: Barral may not be the most prodigiously talented player ever, but few work like he does. No one committed more fouls than him last season and no one’s committed more fouls than him this season, either. “Defenders really hate me,” he says.
Fans, on the other hand, really love him. For his personality as well as his play. Whole hearted, down-to-earth, and committed but wearing it lightly: a qualified coach running kids’ teams and a man who bemoans the fact that “most players’ Twitter accounts are sad” and remains determined that his wouldn’t be. Bio: “In my spare time, I play football.”
“God created the world in six days and on the seventh he rested. During his siesta he realised that he needed a bit of happiness so he created Andalucía,” Barral writes. In Andalucía’s biggest city, Seville, they like to boast of being amusing but he says they’re “much funnier” in Cádiz; “down there, everything’s a laugh,” he says. The local club’s fans are one example; whether Barral is another, you be the judge, but at least his public pronouncements are not the press-officer filtered, sponsor-driven drivel most produce. “I’ve got a sense of humour, which tends to be lacking in this world,” he says.
And so to his Twitter. A photo of a post-training massage: “No happy finish today.” Dressing room wind-ups, jokes, photos, and one particular joke miles too rude to be reproduced here, involving hot weather, a watermelon, and a particular body part – tweet of the year according to Panenka magazine and a headache for Levante who, for once, did request that he delete it. “I suspect it’s a bit late now,” Barral said and it was. Then there are the photos of celebrations and smiles post-game; the moments to be enjoyed. The chants and songs, too.
There is a chant from Levante fans that runs: “Give it to Barral, give it to Barral, and he shall score.” But as Barral admitted, he didn’t score that often. They admired his effort but did not get to admire sack loads of goals. He posted one picture in which he appears with a couple of team-mates in sharp suits and bow ties: “We might not score many goals, but we have more class than a school,” the message runs. Last season, he scored seven – not bad at a club that creates so few chances, but not huge. He scored 17 for Fuenlabrada in Spain’s Second Division B in 2003-04 and 11 for Sporting in the Second Division in 2007-08, but his best return in the top flight was 11 the following year. Since then, his totals run: 10, 4, 5, 9, 4, and 7.
By Christmas this season, he had scored just once. His contract was coming to an end, and Levante were looking for another striker. They were in trouble and desperately needed someone to drag them out of it. José Luis Mendilíbar had gone, sacked way back in October, but there had been little improvement in results under new manager Lucas Alcaraz. They’d won just twice in 13, none in the last nine, reaching week 21 bottom of the table. And then, suddenly, it happened.
Kalu Uche arrived but rather than him being the saviour, it turned out that the saviour was already there. Barral was freed from the centre-backs, allowed to move a little more. Score a little more, too. Now he can’t stop. 1-0 down to Málaga in week 22, Barral scored a hat-trick to take them to a 4-1 victory. 1-0 down to Granada in week 24, Víctor Camarasa equalised in the 88th minute then Barral scored the winner in the 94th minute. 1-0 down to Eibar in week 26, Barral got the equaliser; two minutes later, Uche got the winner. Three wins in six, as many as they had managed all season, and two of them against direct rivals to avoid relegation.
This Saturday they faced another: Almería. “This is the game of the year,” Barral declared beforehand. “This game will mark our route towards safety,” he explained. “If we get three points, it won’t be three points; it’ll be more like six because we would have taken points from them and given ourselves an [unassailable] advantage with the goal difference.”
Barral’s hat-trick against Málaga had been the first of his entire career, since making his debut for Real Madrid C in 2002. “I’m going to treasure this as if it was made of gold,” he said, grasping the match ball under his arm, team-mates’ signatures scrawled all over it. This weekend against Almería, just six weeks later, he got his second as Levante won 4-1 – their first away win in over six months. As he stood on the touchline, microphone wedged under his nose, he held this one just as tightly as he had held the first, eyes wide, barely able to believe it. In Levante’s entire history, there have only been three first division hat-tricks; Barral now has two of them. (The other was Christian Riganó in 2007-08).
On Saturday, Barral overtook five Levante players in the club’s all-time first division goalscorers list. One more goal and he will be out there on his own. From just one goal until Christmas, he now has eight in two months, trailing only Leo Messi and Alberto Bueno since the start of February. With nine this season, he is one away from his own best total and with nine weeks to go. He’s still has not renewed his contract; he says he wants to stay but there has been no agreement yet and the suspicion is that the club are not entirely convinced. But this weekend he did not care, clutching another match ball and posing alongside his son, who was busy sticking his tongue out for the latest snap to go up.
“David is a picture of happiness,” said team-mate Rubén García. “And he’s not the only one.”
Hardly surprising. “It’s not over; you can go from saved to sunk in a week,” García insisted, but as Barral had said, this was a massive game. Victory saw Levante climb four places to 14th and there are now three teams between them and the relegation zone. They have a three-point lead over 18th place Almería according to the league, a six-point lead over 18th place Almería according to the Federation, pending their appeal against a Fifa deduction because of an unpaid debt to Danish side Aalborg relating to the signing of Michael Jakobsen in 2010. “Barral raises a hand … to Almería’s throat,” one headline said.
It could have said “JIM’s throat.” After the game, Almería manager Juan Ignacio Martínez, JIM, was embraced by a grateful president. Levante’s grateful president. Almería’s president, meanwhile, called him in for a meeting. He finally left just before midnight; the following lunchtime, after watching the B team in action, the coach who had miraculously taken Levante’s Expendables to Europe three seasons ago, was sacked as manager of Almería. This morning they announced that Sergi Barjuan would be the fourth man to coach them this season, the third permanent appointment.
As for Levante, they cannot aspire to those European heights any more but some consider survival success for a team on a tiny budget and this result also leaves them well-placed against the other teams in trouble: when it comes to head to heads against their rivals for relegation, to their results against all those teams from Getafe down, their record reads: played 10, won five, drawn four, lost just one. This game tipped the balance.
One headline cheered: “Barral’s hat-trick pulls Levante out of the well.” It is not just the hat-trick, or even both hat-tricks; all of Barral’s goals have led to them picking up points. Even his one goal in the first half of the season was vital, coming against Almería in a 2-1 win. He has contributed 10 points, the difference between safety and the bottom. But there was no escaping the significance this time. This morning there is hope, belief that the club that has only ever spent nine years in the top flight can stay there for a fifth season in a row.
“D day arrived, H hour too, and Levante appeared,” wrote Víctor López in AS. “Right when they most needed to appear, half-clinching survival. There are still nine weeks left but this is a huge boost, psychologically above all, particularly as this week they have Sevilla and Valencia. If they had lost it would look very different; the second Division would be 90% assured. But no. Boom! Yesterday was glory and resurrection … Barral keeps on adding, or multiplying, in fact. Another historic hat-trick; his and Levante’s as they took a giant step towards staying in the first division.”
Barral recently admitted that Lucas Alcaraz is constantly on top of him, never satisfied, quick to correct, slower to praise. After one game, he even noted: “It’s a good job you scored, because the way you played ...” He is “always telling me off” Barral says. Not this time. Rarely one for laughing, the manager’s one-liners are invariably delivered deadpan, his brow furrowed, but Saturday night was different. This time Alcaraz was beaming. Barral had done what he does best: he’d made someone smile.
Talking points
• “Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldo,” ran the cover of AS this morning.
It took Cristiano Ronaldo him just eight minutes to score a hat-trick against Granada and then he added two more to score five for the first time in his career and take his season tally to 36 and his Real Madrid total to a quite insane 300 goals and to take the match ball ... eventually. At the full-time whistle, Bale booted it ito the crowd, leaving Ronaldo looking for it, but he did eventually get his hands on his 24th La Liga match ball, the same number as Leo Messi and as many as anyone else, ever.
Ronaldo’s five goals helped Madrid to a 9-1 victory. Yes, nine. In one match, Madrid scored nine; in a whole season so far, 29 games, Granada have scored 19. Coach Abel Resino described it as “a disaster”, “embarrassing,” “the worst moment of my career as a player or manager.”
His team had let in more in one game at the Bernabéu than he had let in during his entire playing career. They had also played their part: they scored an own goal and you could identify mistakes in at least the first five goals.
Before the game, Resino had told Carlo Ancelotti that he was resting players because the next two games in four days are more important, but even Madrid’s coaching staff were shocked by just how bad they were, by the way they didn’t even run, still less really compete. A decent opening 20 minutes in which they hit the post and caused Madrid a few problems was just blown away. That said, Madrid were the ones doing the blowing, the perfect storm. They were hugely impressive, and it was not just Ronaldo, even if Marca did call him the “bogeyman,” terrifying Barcelona. Luka Modric, Marcelo and James in particular really stood out.
• “There were some guys in light blue in front of us and they were flying.” Luis Enrique admitted that his side were fortunate to win 1-0 in Vigo, against a Celta team that had the better of the first half, at least, and perhaps the game as a whole. It was always likely to be one of the harder matches that Barcelona have left between now and the end of the season, so three points more and one game fewer is reason to be cheerful. The performance was not particularly impressive. (From Barcelona, that is; Celta were excellent). But the character and the efficiency is striking; Barcelona are different this year. Last season there is no way they would have won this match.
For the second game in a row, they were grateful to their two central defenders: Gerard Piqué was superb and Jeremy Mathieu scored another header from a set play. Xavi also played a key part, coming on to give them the control they really lacked.
• For a long time now, Sergio Busquets has been accused of too often going down as if he’s been attacked by a particularly vicious bit of turf. This weekend, he actually was. And he didn’t go down. Orellana was sent off for picking up a clump of grass and throwing it at the Barcelona midfielder as he deliberately took his time over a free kick to get a ban now, in time for the visit of Almería, and not later in the season. It was not quite as bizarre, or as funny, as Arda Turan’s boot throwing antics, but it was more accurate, the grass flying straight into the side of Busquets’ face.
“It was a bit odd, but no problem,” Busquets said after, trying not to smile. “I don’t like what he did, leaving the team with 10 men. I’m going to have words with Orellana,” Berizzo said.
• There was more grass shenanigans down Mestalla way, with Marcelino and Nuno having a go at each other post game over Valencia’s decision not to water the pitch.
“It seems the sprinklers were broken,” Marcelino muttered. “In UEFA games, the teams have to agree; in Spain, the home team decides and they decided to leave it dry. If they had shown some respect and watered the pitch we might have seen a more dynamic game, better for the fans,” he griped.
“I don’t waste time crying,” Nuno shot back, while also noting that there had been a penalty that “everyone at Mestalla saw” except the referee. He continued: “We do what we want at our home If there was a team that tried to win this game, it was Valencia.” It finished 0-0.
• One for Griezmann, one for Saúl and Atlético are back above Valencia and into third place. Córdoba, meanwhile, are as good as gone.
• Every replay and/or sequence of slow-motion-close-ups-for-no-particular-reason on Spanish telly is accompanied on its way in and on the way out by a swoosh sound and a graphic showing the name of the bank that sponsors the league, occupying the whole screen. Which may just explain why there are so many of them. Actually watching the game is becoming extremely difficult, with live matches now almost watched delayed, via replays of the things you missed while they were showing the last replay. But hey, if it means that the bank’s name appears 148 times like it did during the Celta-Barcelona match ...
• They were busy laughing at Finnbogason on the radio, giggling at his every touch, sarcastically raving about him. And then he laid one back neatly for Rubén Pardo to score a lovely equaliser as la Real drew 1-1 at Malaga, making it six games without a defeat now. It would be too much to call it an assist, but slowly he is starting to play a role. And slowly, a certain Scot is leaving his mark too. “Moyes has changed their spirit,” noted former Spain U21 coach Luis Milla.
• Here we go then. With weeks 29, 30 and 31 running into each other and Champions League and Europa league matches in there too, in the next 32 days there will be only one day without a Spanish team playing football. 32? 46 if Barcelona and Sevilla both go through in Europe. Circle April 10 in your diary now.
Results: Eibar 1 - 2 Rayo
Sevilla 2 - 0 Athletic
Córdoba 0 - 2 Atlético
Almería 1 - 4 Levante
Málaga 1 - 1 Real Sociedad
Real Madrid 9 - 1 Granada
Valencia 0 - 0 Villarreal
Getafe 2 - 1 Deportivo
Celta 0 - 1 Barcelona
Tonight: Espanyol-Elche
