More than four hundred kilometres away from Valencia on Sunday 9 October 2016, the Levante players took to the pitch at the Estadio de Los Juegos del Mediterráneo wearing the colours of the Valencian Community flag. The flag acquired consistency and liveliness in the always colourful city of Almería. The day was well deserving of such a tribute from the society of the Orriols neighbourhood. The 9th of October is the quintessential festival of the Valencian people. It is a day full of mysticism. The footballers, captained from the bench by Muñiz, perhaps took to the Almeria coliseum with the determination shown by the troops of Jaume I in the conquest of the city of Valencia in October 1238.
The look on the faces of the eleven chosen by the Asturian coach summed up the importance of the league fixture. The leader of the Silver Division emerged once again to face a new date in the league calendar. That Sunday afternoon session, the antagonisms seemed to materialise on the local pitch. Top of the table list against bottom of the table. However, despite the history of the game, one should not allow oneself to be guided by condescension. There is nothing worse in the discipline of football than complacency. As a rule, nothing is what it seems. Football is refractory to prediction. Every match is like a Meccano that has to be put together.
Levante lived on the borderline between hell and paradise for ninety minutes full of rapture. From that prism, the two sides went at each other with forcefulness as the action of the game unfolded. Quique González challenged Raúl from eleven metres to open the scoring. The Granota reaction was huge in its virulence. Roger and Jason ripped the scoreboard apart in barely ten minutes. And when the victory seemed to be heading towards Orriols, the devastating image of Quique Gonzalez appeared to establish the equaliser. Almeria had Levante cornered after the opening goal while it was Levante who had their opponents in their sights after goals from Roger and Jason. Perhaps the downside for both sides was a lack of authority and forcefulness to impose their will when the situation seemed most conducive to anaesthetising their opponents. Each opponent had their moment, but missed their chance. Perhaps the final equaliser from a Levante side dressed in their colours would have been a match for justice in the light of what happened on the pitch.
The tribute to the 9 October holiday was manifest in Almeria, but it was not an episodic issue that corresponded exclusively to the most representative team of the institution. The tribute was shared by all the teams affiliated to the institution, who fought in duels in matches scheduled for Sunday, 9 October. In this sense, the flag was displayed at the Ciudad Deportiva del Valencia in the match linked to the División de Honor Juvenil that brought together the Valencianista representation and Levante. It was not the only example. In Paiporta, the Levante Femenino girls faced their Liga Iberdrola match against Fundación de Albacete wearing this strip. The Levante Juvenil team pulled out all the stops to recover a match that seemed lost after the lead acquired by Valencia (2-0). Joel and Christian led a titanic comeback in the final stretch that left the Blue and Whites at the top of the table. Levante Femenino recorded their fourth consecutive win (2-1) thanks to goals from Charlyn and Alharilla.
However, this heartfelt offering proposed by Levante began earlier in time than the start of the Sunday fixtures. In fact, Saturday dawned with the flag flooding the shelves of the official shops that the club has in the Ciutat de València Stadium, in the centrally located and well-known Calle de Colón and even in the Ciudad Deportiva de Buñol. The shirt, made by the Italian company Macron, technical sponsor of Levante, attracted the attention of the Levante supporters. It could be said that the flag was the absolute protagonist of the weekend par excellence for the Valencians.