Villarreal’s Champions League win over Bayern Munich was pure magic. Can they finish the job?
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Sid LoweSpain writer
There were two minutes to go and the most extraordinary story was about to be written, or so it goes. The football team from a tiny, unremarkable little town in Spain that had spent most of its history in the regional third tier and was playing its first Champions League campaign, a miracle in itself, had just been awarded a penalty. Score, and it would take them into extra time in front of their fans and against a side who were down to 10 men, bringing the final of the biggest competition there is within touching distance.
Vila Real has a population of 50,577. No place this small had ever had a team win a European trophy, and no one there ever really imagined that they would either. At least not until now. This moment was huge — inconceivably so, one that shouldn’t have happened in the first place and wouldn’t happen again. The man on whose shoulders it lay knew that. You probably know what happened next: Juan Roman Riquelme’s penalty was saved by Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann and Villarreal’s dream disintegrated.
Riquelme never watched it again, but he didn’t need to and nor did anyone else; this was burned into their brains. In the stands at El Madrigal was an 8-year-old boy from the town, sitting with his mother and his brother. He had grabbed a man he didn’t know when they got the penalty and hugged him; now, he broke down in tears.
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Sixteen years later to the month, Pau Torres was there again, only down on the pitch this time. These days Pau — “el xiquet del poble,” they call him, “the boy from the town” — plays for Villarreal. He’s part of the team that, on Wednesday night, took them closer to reaching another Champions League semifinal than they have ever been since, by claiming a famous 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in the first leg of their quarterfinal at El Madrigal. Except the stadium is now called the Ceramica, after…
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Source : espn
