It was late and they were tired, but with four minutes left and long after midnight in Seville, everyone prepared for penalties, Jules Koundé found the strength to send a shot flying into the net and the Barcelona fans into raptures. The fireworks were lit and the men in blue and red sprinted towards him from all sides: here, at last, it was. An epic Copa del Rey final, a first clásico final in 11 years, had a winner. They had been a goal up and a goal down, they had thought they had a last-minute penalty to win it only to have it taken away, but now it was 3-2 and the Catalan side had done it.
Done? Not quite, but very nearly. On an extraordinary night, there was still one last opportunity for Real Madrid when Kylian Mbappé was fouled in the area and the referee, Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea, pointed to the spot, only for the linesman’s flag to be up. They had fought and rebelled, but they were defeated and, in a chaotic end, when all the emotion exploded at the final whistle, somewhere in the noise and the pandemonium they had three players shown red cards: Lucas Vázquez, Antonio Rüdiger and Jude Bellingham. The German had to be held back from going at the referee.
This had been some night, swinging one way and then the next. You might call it a game of two halves, but there were four of them and they had all been superb. They also had an unlikely man at the heart of a decisive moment: Pedri, Mbappé, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Ferran Torres had all scored and then it was Koundé who did so.
Not, though, before it had a very, very likely man standing in the middle of what might have been the decisive moment: after all the talk about referees, after Real had boycotted pre-match activities and the threat that they might refuse to turn up for the game, it was indeed the officials who took the spotlight at the decisive moment.
With 30 seconds left of normal time De Burgos Bengoetxea, who had cried in the pre-match press conference, gave Barcelona a penalty. But Pablo González Fuertes, the video assistant referee who had accompanied him in that press conference and whose talk of taking action against those who criticise officials had so incensed Real, called him to the screen. So there was De Burgos Bengoetxea alone in a 70,000-strong crowd at midnight with time having run out, a career-defining decision to make that would ever be with him. After three long minutes, replays on the giant screens and players surrounding him, offering not entirely neutral advice, the penalty was withdrawn, and so it went to extra time and Koundé’s moment.
What a relief that Real had shown up, even if at the end they might have wished they had not, even if the fury and the frustration overflowed. They played their part in an enthralling final in which exhausted players gave everything – one that dignified this competition more than what happened the day before. At the end of it, Barcelona, whose high line, life lived on the edge, had already seen a Real goal and a penalty ruled out for offside before that last-minute decision against Mbappé, had the trophy. They hope it could be the first of three. Real face the prospect of winning none.
How exhausted everyone was. How this game had shifted, changed, mutated. How the noise had travelled from one end to the other, the psychology of it all. How long ago, those early moments felt. It took 56 seconds for Madrid to even touch the ball and then, when they did, they immediately lost it. That set the tone for a first half that Barcelona dominated and led with a lovely Pedri goal, made by Lamine Yamal.
Yet the half-time introduction of Mbappé and a new mentality shifted everything. Arda Guler and Luka Modric also tipped the balance. Real were alive, and could sense a vulnerability hidden, every action feeling like an opportunity. They got an equaliser when Mbappé was dragged down by Frenkie de Jong. Real wanted a red card but they got something better: from the free-kick, Mbappé bent beyond Wojciech Szczesny’s right hand, celebrating with a gesture borrowed from Cristiano Ronaldo: calm down, I’m here. Barcelona knew: here was a speed and intent about Real, a directness, that soon led to Tchouaméni heading them into the lead.
Into the corner they went, leaping about. But as the celebrating players broke Rüdiger needed a huge bandage applied to his leg, the significance of which was perhaps seen when with six minutes left, he could not catch Torres as the forward ran on to Lamine Yamal’s lovely pass, went past Thibaut Courtois and struck a clean, low, angled finish into the empty net to make it 2-2 with only six minutes left. Rüdiger, in his defence, then made a huge interception to deny Lamine Yamal. He also might have been fortunate not to be punished for what then appeared to be a foul in the area on Torres.
That was when the seemingly inevitable happened with just 30 seconds left. Raphinha went down under a challenge from Raúl Asencio. De Burgos Bengoetxea gave the penalty, González Fuertes called, and the referee was back in the middle of a storm. A single decision, a million consequences, so many thoughts to be blocked out until he said no penalty. Let someone else take the stage. In extra time when blows were exchanged and everyone lived on edge, Torres shooting just wide and Bellingham diving to just miss a header, someone did. A loose pass from Modric and Koundé stepped up to win the trophy.