Roberto turns El Sadar into a blue-and-white arcadia

BarcelonaHistorically, 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).

If they have achieved it, it is thanks to the effectiveness of Roberto Fernández, author of a brace and already one of the trendy forwards in La Liga, and to the mistakes of Osasuna, very inconsistent in defense. The blue-and-whites have taken advantage of this to distance ghosts after three matchdays without a victory, and have added the first three points of a week of nine –they play next Tuesday and Friday–. They already have seven.

A dazzling start

The good half hour that Marcos Fernández played against Sevilla, sealed with the equalizing goal, convinced Manolo González, who in Pamplona had him debut as a starter. Riedel also started. The forward from Cambrils needed just a couple of minutes to confirm that the Galician coach's decision was the right one. This time he did not score, but he assisted Roberto Fernández, who scored his fourth goal of the season just as the parakeets' fifth match was beginning: a great pass back from the former Ceuta player and an opportune finish from the man from Puente Genil, who got ahead of his marker to make it 0-1.

A quarter of an hour later, and after the Croatian Ante Budimir missed two clear chances, Roberto scored his fifth goal of the season. This time it was enough for him to put his foot to a low cross from Omar El Hilali, who turned 23 today, because Alejandro Catena, incomprehensibly letting the ball go by, confused his goalkeeper and left him alone on the line. Half the goal belongs to Edu Expósito, who found the full-back, also present in the action of the first, with a brilliant pass into space.

0-2 before the 20th minute. Even so, the start was not a bed of roses for Espanyol, who were soft in defense and suffered a lot with Osasuna's lateral crosses, as they were tired of putting balls into the box. The Navarrese, who claimed a more than dubious penalty on Raúl García, also saw a goal disallowed that was not legal.

Direct play is the hallmark of their coach, Luis Miguel Ramis, an old acquaintance of Espanyol: he is the predecessor of Manolo González on the blue-and-white bench. Surely Ramis, who builds his teams from the back, left for the break furious after seeing how his players made mistake after mistake, making life easy for an orderly Espanyol that, with few passes, was able to get in front of Herrera. Without playing a very brilliant game, with a little more accuracy, they could have gone to the locker room with the job done.

Ramis's scolding did not have the expected effect on his players, at least with the debutant Rockson Yeboah, who, just after the second half started, let a ball go by that allowed Dolan to be left alone in front of Sergio Herrera. The young Ghanaian center-back was lucky that his goalkeeper took the ball from the Englishman's feet just as he was preparing to score the third.

The local coach made up to four changes before the 60th minute to try to hurt an Espanyol side that was much more in control of the situation than in the first half. Manolo's adjustments at halftime did work, and his players were able to live more calmly until the last twenty minutes of the match. Then, Raúl Moro took on the weight of the team and, with diagonals and crosses into the area, surrounded the 'periquitos' inside their own box. Mind you, without much danger to a Marko Dmitrovic who did not have to perform his weekly miracle to sustain the final 0-2, which confirms that El Sadar is an arcadia for Espanyol.