‘An apotheosis’: Osasuna rejoice at ending 15-year wait to topple Real Madrid | Sid Lowe

There’s only one thing better than celebrating a brilliant 90th-minute winner that at last delivers victory over the team you most want to beat, 15 long years later. Celebrating it twice. So this Saturday, that was exactly what Sergio Herrera did. At the north end of El Sadar, where for one night only they thought VAR might be a good thing, Raúl García applied the brakes, sent Raúl Asencio sliding by out of shot and curled a gorgeous finish beyond Thibaut Courtois to defeat Real Madrid 2-1; at the south end, Osasuna’s keeper turned, jumped over the hoardings where the ticker tape, armbands and beach balls lay spent, and leapt into the arms of the fans going wild behind his goal, an extra notch somehow found on that volume dial, pandemonium taking Pamplona.

Which was when someone noticed that the assistant had his flag up, the referee, Alejandro Quintero, had his whistle in his mouth, and García had his hands over his face. Herrera climbed down, lamenting his lack of patience, but he didn’t have to wait long until everything turned out nice again and he got to have another go. Sixty-four seconds passed before Quintero took his finger out his ear, drew a screen and pointed at the centre circle. The offside overruled, the goal given, victory over Madrid close, Herrera set off once more. He sprinted along the line and back again screaming all the way, let loose for good this time. “Bloody hell,” he said after, the offside had been a blow – “una leche”, in his words – but this was marvellous.

Herrera is too, this moment much like him: a goalkeeper who’s all in, a character who doesn’t mind a carry-on, often as fun to watch as the football in front of him. “Positively mad”, he says, albeit with the stress more on the positive than the mad. “I can seem edgy, nervous, but I’m calm,” he insists, and if he plays games he makes saves too, Saturday night taking him to 91 for the season, only behind Real Oviedo’s Aarón Escandell. Opposition fans enjoy calling him names but he’s willing to roll with it, giving a little bit back and laughing at it all. As for his own supporters, his teammates too, they couldn’t love him more and when he turned to them and roared at the final whistle, thudding at his chest, they roared back.

This is their Herrera the way they like him and, besides, this doesn’t happen every day. Almost any day, in fact. The last time Osasuna had beaten Real Madrid was in January 2011 on the night Cristiano Ronaldo asked Walter Pandiani who he was and how much he earned and Javier Camuñas scored the only goal. Osasuna’s goalkeeper then was Ricardo, who was at Manchester United. Madrid’s was Iker Casillas, after whom Herrera was sort-of named. Growing up in Miranda de Ebro, Herrera was a Casillas fan; he was also thin, all stick-legs, and one day a mum watching them play shouted he’s not Casillas he’s *Canillas (*shins, skinny), everyone laughed and it stuck. Madrid’s coach meanwhile was José Mourinho, Sergio Ramos was still a right-back, and at left-back was Álvaro Arbeloa. Now he’s their manager, and he had warned them. “I think I’ve only won once in all my visits to El Sadar,” he said.

The Osasuna goalkeeper, Sergio Herrera, sets off after Raúl García’s late winner. Photograph: Ricardo Larreina/AFP7/Shutterstock

“I wasn’t wrong,” Arbeloa said after Madrid had been defeated on Saturday night but he wasn’t entirely right either. There is no one Osasuna like to beat more and, back then, Madrid had won only a third of their visits ever. But while they’re still the team that most gets this place going, while last year’s visit ended in a 1-1 draw, a red card for rude Bellingham and the most delirious argument anyone could remember even in a country where mass debate is just what they do in most of the media, arguing whether it was worse to say “fuck off” or “fuck you”, things had changed. The economic balance, for a start. And Osasuna hadn’t beaten Madrid in 15 years and 25 matches. This time, at last, they did – and deservedly, even if they needed the VAR.

It had been some night. “Anyone who comes knows this stadium is incredible every week, that there’s always a good atmosphere,” Herrera said. “And then there are certain games where it is especially spectacular.” One chant runs “Oh, how scared I am to be from Madrid and play at El Sadar” and they welcomed Vinícius with Baywatch floats, rubber armbands and beachballs bouncing about – the latter supposedly the only “award” he could win and a familiar sight after Madrid boycotted the Ballon d’Or ceremony insulted at the Brazilian being voted the second-best player in the whole wide world. Most of all, though, the supporters welcomed their own team and the way they played.

Madrid were just not particularly good, which is often the case. Herrera made two saves and Javi Galán twice blocked shots but Osasuna were worthy winners, often daring to play and always knowing when not to. The left-winger Víctor Muñoz turned Dani Carvajal so many times the defender turned to mush. Putting a 34-year-old who hasn’t started since October and is still not fit against the league’s second-fastest player surprised many. Putting David Alaba against Ante Budimir, possibly the best header of the ball there is, did too, especially with Rubén García supplying crosses. Lucas Torró, about whom we need to talk, impressed as ever. And when it came to making changes, Osasuna’s subs were decisive. So, perhaps, were Madrid’s, just not in a good way.

Budimir scored the first with a penalty on 38 minutes after he had run clear, gone past Courtois and Raúl Asencio and tumbled in the area. At first the Croatian was booked for diving, the fall given a little added theatre, but the referee was called to the VAR screen while players argued their cases, Herrera and Kylian Mbappé laughing about it. When he came back from seeing Courtois slightly tread on Budimir’s foot, Quintero took the card away and pointed to the spot instead. The penalty was “light”, Herrera admitted. By then, Budimir had hit the post and Courtois had performed his daily miracle; now the Croatian, hurt that he hadn’t been trusted in the first place, coolly rolled in the penalty.

Although there was a little more from Madrid in the second half, it wasn’t much. Vinícius scored the equaliser after a superb run from Fede Valverde. Too often Madrid reached the area and had nowhere to go but back again. Deeper now, Osasuna’s resistance was mostly comfortable enough and then, with the clock heading towards 90 three subs settled it: Dani Ceballos gave the ball away and Raúl Moro found García, who cut back sharply to score, Asencio going by like a kid on the slide watching the game pass as he went. It was something Dennis Bergkamp would have liked and something García said “I did a lot in segunda”; it was also, Herrera grinned after, “the best time to score against Madrid”, not long left to go, little room for a remontada.

Raúl García sits down Real Madrid’s Raúl Asencio before scoring the winner. Photograph: Jesús Diges/EPA

“When I looked at the ref I thought: ‘Bloody hell, what a kick in the teeth’,” Herrera said. “I should have been more patient. But then when he corrected it, it was [even better]. I don’t know how many times I’ll beat Madrid – hopefully many more – but this was the first and I enjoyed it like a little kid. I enjoyed it, my team enjoyed it, the people enjoyed it.”

Herrera’s goal-kick was the last kick, the ball still in the air when he faced the fans again, thumping his chest. Then he ran to the join teammates celebrating in the centre circle, heading round the pitch together before eventually heading off past the statue of San Fermín bricked into the wall by the bench, up the tunnel and turning left. Osasuna had done it: they had beaten Madrid and racked up a sixth game without defeat, fears of relegation replaced by dreams of Europe. “I don’t want to be so presumptions as to say we made history because this club has a long history, but this hadn’t happened in recent history,” the coach, Alessio Lisci, said. “At that last goal-kick, I stood looking at the stands. In the end, that’s why we like football, why we play: to make people happy. I love to see the ground, the fans, the faces.”

“It was so, so … that I don’t have the word for it,” Lisci added, the pause proving his point, but Diario de Navarra did: an “apotheosis”. “You can imagine what it’s like in there,” the captain, Jon Moncayola, said, standing outside the dressing-room door. “We went through hard months but we’ve turned it round completely and beating Madrid after I-don’t-know-how-many years caps that off.” Inside, amid the dancing and singing, the bottles being cracked open, the players were having a not-particularly-quiet word with the manager. “They threatened me: ‘Give them a couple of days off or they wouldn’t let me out,” Lisci laughed, so he did. “It was euphoric in there,” Herrera said and it wasn’t over yet. It was just after nine on a Saturday night in Pamplona, time to celebrate again.