4-2 in the shootout, Athletic Club are winners of the Copa del Rey after beating Mallorca.
Berenguer was born in Pamplona, 146 km away from Bilbao, Athletic Club's home.
Alex Berenguer celebrates after scoring the winning penalty for Athletic Club.
The award for top scorer in LaLiga is named after a Basque: Athletic Club legend Rafael "Pichichi" Moreno.
For that, Berenguer and Athletic Club take our moment of the weekend.
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Alex Berenguer kept the ball on the spot, tapped his left boot on the ground once, then paused to pick a few blades of grass off it. He then took seven strides back, ball at the penalty spot, him on the edge of the box. A deep breath, three steps sideways to his left, a quick stutter at the start of the run-up, and a calm pass into the bottom corner. The roof of the Estadio de Olimpico in Seville is blown away by an explosion of red and white. 4-2 in the shootout, Athletic Club are winners of the Copa del Rey after beating Mallorca.
Berenguer was born in Pamplona, 146 km away from Bilbao, Athletic Club's home. Of the three scorers in the penalty shootout, two others (Raul Garcia and Iker Muniain) are also from Pamplona, the third (Mikel Vesga) from Vittoria-Gasteiz, which is even closer to Bilbao (64 km). The second-choice keeper who turned hero in the shootout, Julen Agirrezabala, is from Donostia-San Sebastian, 109km away. The scorer of their lone goal in regulation time, Oihan Sancet, is also from Pamplona.
Not one person in the squad was born or brought up in a place that's more than a two-hour drive away from San Mames, home of Athletic Club.
On the face of it this doesn't say much. But consider what they go up against season-in, season-out and you'd begin to understand what this win means. It's a surface level comparison but add the distances of all the hometowns of all the Athletic players that played on Saturday night to Bilbao, and it'd still fall well short of the 8,386 km that separates the home of the hero of the last Copa final (Sao Paolo, Rodrygo) with the place of his work (Real Madrid, Madrid). Where their primary rivals have the world as their catchment area, Athletic Club have clung on to the unofficial rule that makes them more rooted to their community than almost any other on the planet.
To play for them, you have to be one of them.
You have to be either born in the small region of Spain that forms the Basque country like the scorers and keeper mentioned above (Not Spain, Basque -- there's a reason it's called Athletic not Atletico). Or they have to have been "formed" there. This unique condition allows children borne of parents emigrated to the region for natural reasons (like work) to play for them -- like the coach (and former player), Ernesto Valverde; like the Williams brothers, Inaki and Nico whose parents crossed the Sahara barefoot as they arrived in Bilbao from Ghana in search of a new life. The players are Basque, the coach is Basque-by-adoption, the fans are Basque. All this means that every victory seems to resonate with the community that much more.
Alex Berenguer celebrates after scoring the winning penalty for Athletic Club. Photo by Jose Luis Contreras/Dax Images)
Not that Athletic are any strangers to footballing success: this is Athletic's 24th Copa del Rey triumph, more than any other club bar Barcelona. For much of the early part of the 20th century, Basque football ruled Spain. The award for top scorer in LaLiga is named after a Basque: Athletic Club legend Rafael "Pichichi" Moreno. Till Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo came along, the top scorer in La Liga history was another Athletic legend, Telmo Zarra.
But the problem is that all that was a long while ago. This is their first trophy of any sort in 40 years. The last time they lifted this trophy, Diego Maradona had started an all-out brawl after the final; now this generation's Maradona, Messi, has been gone from Spain for three years. With football growing globally, and the financial heft of not just Madrid and Barca but others around them increasing, opening up the global market commercially and as a resource pool (8.1 billion people vs 2.1 million!), Athletic's stubborn attachment to their legacy has meant it's always an uphill battle.
Not that they'd have it any other way. In this final against Mallorca, another club punching above its weight this season, Mallorca took the lead with a superb Daniel Rodriguez strike before Athletic took over. The pressure finally told when Sancet ran onto a delicious Nico Williams ball and curled it home. It remained tense till the end, till penalties arrived and with it Berenguer's goal that will immortalise him in Basque folklore.
For that, Berenguer and Athletic Club take our moment of the weekend.
