The Eder Sarabia era began with the Basque coach in a grandstand at the RCDE Stadium and his assistant, Jon López, directing from the bench due to the one-match suspension the new blue and white manager was carrying. The perspective granted by the height of Cornellà-El Prat allowed him to scrutinize the strengths and weaknesses of a team unaccustomed to taking the initiative, which lacked a bit of ruthlessness to turn the good football shown against Deportivo de La Coruña (0-0) into three points. It became clear that from now on the blue and white fans will be entertained, though it remains to be seen if they will also celebrate victories. With the first diagnosis in hand, Sarabia now has two weeks of the international break to polish the details of a proposal that, for the moment, is more convincing in its play than in its results.

In one of his first interventions as Espanyol coach, Eder Sarabia wanted to publicly thank Sergio García for last Friday's victory in Vila-real. And he did so without anyone asking him directly about him: “It's not just because of the result, but because of the feelings the team conveyed. Now there is a different energy, people are smiling more... and that way it is easier to start working”.

It felt very strange not to see Manolo González on the Espanyol bench. Even more so to have Sergio García sitting there, who not long ago was celebrating goals on the pitch at Cornellà-El Prat. He now manages the reserve team and, since Eder Sarabia is carrying a suspension and had to watch the match from a box, the man from Bon Pastor was in charge of trying to lift the spirits of a depressed team that had come from falling with a crash on the field of a Segunda RFEF side. And he succeeded.

At eight o'clock this Thursday morning, Eder Sarabia (Bilbao, 1980) went out cycling with a friend to the hermitage of Sant Pasqual, in Orito (Alicante). He spent almost two hours on the bike, with a demanding climb and ramps with slopes of over 15%, to say goodbye to Elche, the city where he has lived lately, before heading to Barcelona. On Wednesday afternoon, it was confirmed that the Basque coach would be Manolo González's replacement on the Espanyol bench.

"Espanyol has decided to put an end to Manolo González's time as head coach of the first team." With this sentence began the statement from the blue-and-white club in which it officially announced the dismissal of the Galician coach this Tuesday night after being eliminated from the Copa del Rey for the third consecutive season on the field of a Second Federation team. Barbastre, Atlético Baleares, and this year Sestao River (4-3), in the last minute of extra time, have been the executioners of Manolo González, who everyone considered doomed after the defeat on Saturday in Santander and who did not take advantage of the extra life he was given on Tuesday.

Manolo González is against the ropes. The Espanyol coach faced the visit to Racing de Santander with the need for a reaction that did not arrive and he left the Sardinero even more weakened. Not even a highly controversial decision by Gil Manzano, a referee with a dire record for the 'periquitos', can hide an increasingly difficult reality: the team is not starting and its coach's margin is running out.

Espanyol cannot lift its head. Since the season began, it has only won two League matches, the last one on Osasuna's field, almost a month and a half ago. The defeats against Rayo Vallecano and Elche, the latter especially painful because the parakeets played the entire match with an extra man, set off alarm bells at the white-and-blue club. Monchi maintained his confidence in Manolo González, who survived the international break, but is back in the eye of the storm after drawing in Málaga, on the last-placed team's field, and losing against Atlético de Madrid at home.

Espanyol is competing again. And they have discovered that they have a great goalkeeper. These are the two best pieces of news for the blue-and-whites, who this afternoon made Atlético de Madrid sweat hard. Even so, neither a good match nor Fortuño's saves were enough to get anything positive against the second-placed team, the only one that can keep up with Barça in the League. Another cruel goal, by Baena in the 89th minute, dashed the efforts of the parakeets, who improved on the image offered against Rayo, Elche, and Málaga, but have lost again (0-1) and have only achieved one point out of the last 12. The defeat adds even more doubts about the continuity of Manolo González, questioned for weeks and who now faces three consecutive away games that could seal his future.

There are opportunities that make you wait a lifetime. Àngel Fortuño (Barcelona, 2001) knows this well, having defended the Espanyol goal for seventeen years. As a child, he was a ball boy at Cornellà-El Prat, from where he watched up close the players he aspired to emulate one day. Last Friday, at the Malaga stadium, Marko Dmitrovic's injury opened the doors to a starting position he had been chasing for months. And he did not waste the opportunity. “Àngel’s game was perfect,” said Manolo González, who was not surprised by the level of the goalkeeper, who is usually a substitute. Neither he nor anyone at the Sant Adrià sports city, which has been his home since he was 7 years old. “I have known him for a long time and I know he is a great goalkeeper. I was looking forward to him being able to prove it,” added Pol Lozano, one of the first team captains.

Although Manolo González and Monchi denied that the match at La Rosaleda was an ultimatum for the Galician coach, there was a feeling in the air that another defeat for Espanyol, on the field of the bottom team in the category, would greatly complicate the situation of the team and its coach, who were coming off a home loss against the last-placed team while having an extra player. In Malaga, where Bryan Zaragoza scored a great goal to put the 'periquitos' ahead and Fortuño played in goal, they were one minute short because in the 93rd minute, in a very cruel way, Niño equalized a not-at-all brilliant match (1-1), but one that Espanyol had already won. The point avoids a greater evil, but it also does not serve to dispel the doubts of a blue-and-white side that continues to be unable to find its way back to victory. And next Saturday they host Atlético de Madrid.

Raúl Tamudo, the top Catalan goalscorer, was signed from Milán Santa Coloma in exchange for six balls. And Joan Capdevila, the only white-and-blue world champion, was discovered when he was playing for Tàrrega in a Copa Generalitat triangular tournament. Barça also wanted him, but he was ultimately convinced by Josep Manel Casanova (1951-2017), a former player, former coach, and coordinator of Espanyol's youth football for nearly two decades. Lardín, Sergio González, Coro... The list of talents he forged is very long. That is why he is considered the father of the white-and-blue youth academy. When he died of a heart attack while watching a youth match of Málaga, many of them, as in the case of Tamudo and Capdevila, said goodbye to him by explaining that he had "changed their lives".

"People have been talking about it in the village for weeks. It's historic for Lleida to make its debut in our home," said a busy Ivan Borrell, president of Sunyer, the modest team from a small Segrià village of 310 inhabitants, surrounded by fruit tree crops, especially peach trees. "Since it wasn't raining here, on Saturday afternoon we leveled the sand on the pitch. We did it with some bars that we dragged with a tractor." On Sunday at noon, hours before the match, Ivan painted the lines of the playing field with chalk.

At the RCDE Stadium auditorium, they are already making room for a new portrait. If Roberto Fernández (Puente Genil, Córdoba, 2002) makes his debut with the senior Spanish national team on Saturday against the Czech Republic or on Tuesday in Croatia, his photograph will become part of Espanyol’s gallery of internationals, alongside those of Joselu Mato and Raúl de Tomás. The call-up is the reward for his dazzling start to the season and, for the moment, the culmination of a journey that began at Salerm Puente Genil, the club in his hometown.

“Vera, Parra, Teruel, Artigas, Diego, Casas, González, Grau, Celma, Pujol, Segarra and Egea. Pujol is my father, who was a forward and was on trial at Espanyol,” says Xavier Pujol with a smile, after reciting from memory the starting eleven from a photo from the 1950-51 season that hangs on one of the walls of the ground floor of his house, in a small town in the interior of the Garraf. That space was prepared to be a wine cellar, but Xavier, one of the most recognized white-and-blue collectors most recognized, decided to turn it into a museum dedicated to the club of his loves.

The painful defeat against Elche called into question the continuity of Manolo González at the helm of Espanyol. The Galician coach himself acknowledged in a press conference that it had been a "dreadful" match, the "worst" since he has been at the blue-and-white club. With one man down for 85 minutes, the bottom team of the League won with authority at Cornellà-El Prat (1-3) in the prelude to a 21-day international break, favorable for making a coaching change.

The first half at Butarque did not serve as a warning to Espanyol, who last night lost heavily once again (1-3). This time as the home team, against the bottom side of the League and with an extra player from practically the beginning of the match. The passivity and inability against an Elche side that had not yet won in the League sparked whistles at Cornellà-El Prat and leaves Manolo González very shaken, who, despite having seven points, faces a long international break after two defeats that hurt a lot, especially due to the worrying image of his team.

Espanyol lamented their disastrous start in Leganés. In a nine-point week and after a great triumph at El Sadar, 45 calamitous minutes led to their defeat (2-1) against a Rayo Vallecano side playing in exile. If four days ago in Pamplona the rivals' mistakes paved the way, yesterday their own errors made life very difficult for them, right from the start.

Historically, El Sadar has been a cursed field for Espanyol: in Pamplona they began to mourn the 2020 relegation and two decades ago they lost their qualification for the Champions League. But in recent months that has changed: the previous season they sealed their survival with a great triumph, and this afternoon, less than four months later, they won their first away game of the season there (0-2).

At Osasuna's field, Espanyol has celebrated safety and has mourned relegations, but in the white-and-blue popular imagination, the Sadar stadium is deeply linked to the name of a very high-profile referee: Eduardo Iturralde González. It has been more than 20 years since the episode that gave rise to his black legend among the periquito fan base; despite the passage of time, there is no Espanyol fan who does not remember him when their team competes in Pamplona. And this Saturday (16:15, Movistar+ LaLiga and DAZN), six days after the refereeing controversy against Sevilla, the Catalan side returns to visit the Navarrese capital to face Osasuna.

Since March 17, 2024, the day Manolo González debuted on the blue-and-white bench, Espanyol has changed its president and owner, its sporting director –Garagarza, on leave, keeps the position, but his duties are performed by Monchi– and, even, its division. One of the few things that has not changed is, precisely, the coach. A Manolo who yesterday managed his 100th match in charge of the first team.