There were 60 seconds left in the hardest, most inexplicable season of Marcelino García Toral’s career and things had finally fallen into place, at last making a little sense, when he looked to the sky and seemed to say something. “I was thinking about my dad, who’s not here,” he revealed: a brief moment alone before he was engulfed, ended by the final whistle on the final day. Rubén Uría grabbed him from one side, Ismael Fernández from the other, and together Valencia’s manager and his assistants – his confidents – tried but mostly failed to take it all in. Around them, Valladolid’s supporters celebrated another season in primera; across the pitch, 900 Valencia fans celebrated another season in the Champions League.

If that shouldn’t have been so remarkable – Valencia qualified for the Champions League last season and at €165m they have the fourth-biggest budget in the first division – there was a reason why they leapt about like they did, a reason for all the emotion, the tears fighting through and the lumps in their throats. There had been resistance; now there was relief, redemption and a lesson for those prepared to listen. Valencia had got there and Marcelino had got there with them. For most of a year in which, in the words of José Luis Gayá, they had suffered like dogs, a season in which Marcelino said they had been “punched in the face daily”, neither of those things looked likely. But here they were, still standing.

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Rodrigo Moreno came over and embraced his manager. He had got the first goal of the season against Atlético. He had then gone 15 games without scoring but not one without support. Now, he had scored the last goal of the season, making it 2-0 at Valladolid and assuring them of fourth, releasing nine months of tension. Valencia had been in a Champions League place for just six days, but they were the last six. They had spent many more in a much worse place, they knew, and it wasn’t chance that Rodrigo was the first to reach his manager. Nor that Dani Parejo, the captain, was next to arrive. “I said to Dani: ‘you hugged me then, now it’s my turn to hug you’,” Marcelino revealed afterwards, the season defined by their embraces.

The last time Valencia had played Valladolid was on 12 January. It was the final game of the first half of the season, and they were under pressure. The campaign had begun without a win in six and it wasn’t getting much better; they had been knocked out of the Champions League, eliminated at Young Boys, and went into the Valladolid game in 12th, having won just four of 18 league matches. The last of those wins had come three weeks earlier when they had beaten Huesca with a goal that arrived on 93.02 and the reaction revealed the tension, Ezequiel Garay spitting “they can take it up the arse” as the white hankies came out and some supporters whistled. Which was when Gayá shouted: “We’re out here suffering like dogs.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Valencia’s Rodrigo Moreno rounds Real Valladolid’s goalkeeper Yoel Rodriguez to score the second goal in the 2-0 win. Photograph: Óscar del Pozo/AFP/Getty Images

They were too. Or they would have been if dogs actually suffered and didn’t just sit around licking their paws all day. Valencia came back in the new year, lost to Alavés, lost in the Copa del Rey to Sporting and the rumours began gathering pace. Marcelino didn’t have long left, they said. But the players believed in him and when Parejo opened the scoring against Valladolid he turned, raced to the touchline and celebrated the goal with his manager, his support played out publicly.

If it was decisive – and it probably was – it didn’t look like it just yet. That day, like all those other days, Valencia missed chance after chance, Santi Mina seeing one escape him on the line. They even won a penalty which Parejo handed to Rodrigo to take, desperate for him to break his bad run, but Rodrigo still couldn’t score: from a goal every 151 minutes last season, he had just two in 23 games. And then, out of nowhere, Rubén Alcaraz scored a superb free-kick with Valladolid’s only shot to somehow, goodness only knows how, clinch a late draw. “Valencia can be better explained through the occult than through reason,” Marca’s match report said.

There could hardly be a better portrait of their season. It was the halfway stage and Valencia were 10th, 20 points off the top, 10 points off the Champions League and only four off relegation. “I’ve genuinely never seen anything like this; I’ve never had a season like it and a lot of the time I can’t explain it,” Marcelino insisted after one game. It wasn’t as if they were awful, although they certainly lacked the clarity of the year before, but they couldn’t score: “We’ve scored 17 from 263 chances,” the coach sighed. “If the owner decides to get rid of the coach, there’s nothing I can do about it,” he conceded.

The club had patience; we could see that the work being done [by Toral] was good Mateu Alemany

The club’s director general Mateu Alemany and the president Anil Murthy had been summoned to Singapore to see the owner, Peter Lim, the day after the Valladolid game. The good news was that Parejo’s celebration had made the players’ position known, Marcelino declaring his gratitude. As had Rodrigo’s comments after the game: “It wouldn’t be right if they changed coach,” he said. “He can’t perform a miracle. He can’t come on and finish the chances for us.” Vitally, Alemany was of the same opinion, and he told Lim that. Together, players and the director general had saved Marcelino from the sack. “The first half of the season was hard, nothing was coming off,” Alemany said on Saturday, carefully using a collective voice that hid how close others were to pulling the trigger. “But the club had patience; we could see that the work being done was good.”

Soon, results were good too.

The day after the Valladolid draw, Parejo issued a rallying call: “I refuse to give up on a season in January: I believe in this team,” he tweeted.

“The thing is it was January: you’ve got five months left, you can’t give up in January,” he said. “I’ve been through three or four situations very like it here before: I know what coaches feel like, what they go through, the pressure: you have a very, very bad time of it. I never planned anything; [the celebration] came naturally. The mister’s given everything for me. He’s here eight, nine, 10 hours a day, 100% committed. We heard the rumours, the stories that he didn’t have long left, that if we didn’t win the next game he’d be sacked. And he didn’t deserve to go through that.”

But this time was different, and they did win the next game. “In other circumstances they could have got rid of the míster,” Parejo said. “But with the arrival of Mateu Alemany, with Pablo [Longoria, the director of football], there’s a stability now and the club knows where it’s going. Coaches aren’t working with the idea that ‘maybe tomorrow they’ll get rid of me’ any more. And you can feel that; we’ve seen it this year. Thanks to Mateu’s faith in the coach, we’ve seen the results.”

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And so it began. An 84th minute goal from Rodrigo beat Celta 2-1 the following week. “That was huge. That released us. You start to see the light,” Parejo said and Valencia didn’t lose again in 10 league games, 17 over all. They reached the final of the Copa del Rey (next weekend against Barcelona), the semi-final of the Europa League against Arsenal, and they climbed six places in the league, eventually hauling back 12 points on Sevilla, seven on Getafe. No one’s ever been 10 points off the Champions League places at halfway and still qualified but with a week to go Valencia climbed into fourth, their fate in their own hands for the first time, and although Getafe climbed above them 13 minutes into the final day when they went 1-0 up against Villarreal, they weren’t to be denied. Carlos Soler’s goal made it 1-0 to Valencia and when Rodrigo scored, they were there.

All of them, together.

“When you’re under pressure, the coach is always the weakest link but I was lucky: I had the players and the directors on my side, they supported me when it was hard. They are my bulwark,” Marcelino said, voice breaking. “It’s not easy to turn around that negativity, but we did it.” As the clock ticked away, the journey almost complete, Valencia back where they were supposed to be, their manager took a moment, alone, looking to the sky. And then, the whistle went and they ran to embrace him, in good times now as well as bad.

Quick guide La Liga results Show Hide Levante 2–2 Atlético, Espanyol 2–0 Real Sociedad, Getafe 2 – 2 Villarreal, Sevilla 2–0 Athletic, Valladolid 0–2 Valencia, Alavés 2–1 Girona, Celta 2–2 Rayo, Huesca 2–1 Leganés, Real Madrid 0–2 Real Betis, Eibar 2–2 Barcelona