“Blood, sweat and tears”, reported Levante El Mercantil Valenciano. Las Provincias opted to return to the past. “The old-fashioned way” was the headline to recall a scoreline that seemed to have been taken from another, much more distant time. The truth is that that match between Levante and Ceuta was more than a simple confrontation in the ocean of a vast competition made up of thirty-eight battles. It was the match par excellence because of its remarkable significance. The records allow us to recreate a vertiginous duel in its development (5-4), with the first and second placed teams going head to head. Ceuta’s defensive consistency was the main feature of the match. Three goals in twenty-one games. Manolo was the most sought after goalkeeper in those days. He had conceded just one goal in the sequence of matches and had kept goal for 1223 minutes.
No one was able to beat the Canarian goalkeeper during that record cycle. The rest of the goals conceded, two, were accounted for by the substitute goalkeeper in his only league appearance. Levante had not lost at the Ciutat. They had won as many home games as they had played. Their record was immaculate. They were defending the sceptre of La Liga. In those days only the leader of each of the groups materialised their conversion into a Second Division team. The match tore apart the parameters that seemed to be established by virtue of the conditioning factors. Latorre, Blesa and López went on a rampage against their opponents in barely twenty minutes.
Roberto Álvarez’s men looked to have disabled the Andalusian side after scoring two more goals before the end of the first chapter of a sidereal duel to the cheers of the more than twelve thousand souls that filled the stands of the Blue and Reds’ coliseum. Latorre seemed to crush Ceuta’s heart with the fifth goal of the afternoon, but Ceuta’s reaction at the restart was stellar and immediate. No one expected such a spirited response from a group that tried to turn the scoreline around, despite the complexity of the task.
The great players are measured in those kinds of moments. And the situation of Ceuta in the table was not anecdotal. Ocenda pulled one back early in the second half. Ito between the 77th and 78th minutes sowed the seeds of doubt. On the opposite side of the pitch, Manolo’s eyes were shining with excitement and the legs of the home players were trembling. Museros, goalkeeper of Levante, acquired its share of prominence. Corbalán touched the sixth. Y un centro de Antela se paseó por las cercanías del arco granota sin adquirir rematador. El firmamento pareció desvanecerse sobre el feudo de Orriols. The victory did not fade away in one of those trend-setting matches that will not be forgotten with the passage of time.