The confrontation against Atlético de Bilbao, today Athletic Club, in the Copa del Generalísimo for the 1946-1947 financial year rests on the Levantine imaginary. The most unrepentant followers, those clothed in the residue of wisdom that experience grants, tried to keep and preserve a memory that acquires luminescence. The minutes, a kind of perpetual evocation of the duel, reveals everything experienced in an afternoon in which the Levante rode on the back of a stray horse. Villagrá’s team debated during the ninety minutes of the game between hope and Greek tragedy.
“It was undoubtedly the best game ever played on our pitch,” warns the club employee, who wanted to preserve the memory of the return match in the commentary on the right-hand side of the document. “We have eliminated Atlético, even if the overall result is in their favour,” he postulates. And he adds with a tone of regret. “Munguía’s refereeing was poor, not having clearly demonstrated his intentions because we did not manage to overcome the Bilbao difference.”.
That match in the Turia capital was conditioned by the events that took place in the match that opened the round of 16 sequence in the San Mamés stadium in the Basque Country. Salvador and Botella silenced the red and white coliseum in the preamble to the cup tie with two goals that undid the king of cups. The game was barely twenty minutes old. The differences between two teams distanced in the football ecosystem by virtue of their roles seemed to blur. Urquizu’s group restored their honour. The match ended with a four-goal advantage for the Bilbao side (6-2).
However, the blaugranas’ players left the field of play in disgust at the referee’s performance. In their opinion, Celestino Rodríguez conditioned the evolution of the challenge with the two penalties that whipped the azulgranas’ players’ conscience. The second leg in Vallejo showed the most irreverent version of Villagrá’s pupils. Levante again stirred up the match. Escrivá, twice, Martínez Catalá and Botella tried to put Atlético on the brink. “The Valencians played their best game of the season and overwhelmed the Bilbao eleven”, reported El Mundo Deportivo.