“Keep calm,” Levante’s manager, Paco López, said but he knew better than anyone that it was a bit late for that. Maybe tomorrow. For now, Sunday lunchtime in the Valencian sunshine, it was time to enjoy it, like he’d said from the start. His players had thrown shirts into the crowd and turned the pitch into a mosh pit, pushing and pogoing, dancing round a circle, emotion escaping as they embraced and 24,001 red-and-blue flags waved: 24,000 around the ground and one high above them all. Along the east stand, the division’s team’s flags fly in league order, arranged every Monday by Raimon, the groundsman with the chaotic mini-museum below the other stand. Levante’s is 17 in; it shouldn’t slide right now. Barcelona, Atlético, Valencia and Madrid will join them up there again next season.

It’s not all over, hence the call for calm, but nearly. They were celebrating being alive, survival all but secured. A 2-1 victory over Las Palmas means Levante will almost certainly be back; Deportivo La Coruña, Las Palmas, and Málaga almost certainly won’t be. With seven games left, they’re eight, 10 and 14 points adrift respectively. Between them, they’ve had nine goalkeepers, nine coaches, 60 defeats, and virtually no discernible plan. Now they have virtually no chance, either – almost gone already, slipping into segunda without much of a fight. “Until the calculator says otherwise, we have to believe,” said the Las Palmas manager Paco Jémez.

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In the Las Palmas dressing room, no one was saying anything much. “There are people crying in there, heads down, sad, aware of the consequences of this; they know what this means. We’re not that clever but we’re not stupid either,” Jémez said. “There are 21 points left, more than enough for anyone to be saved or for anyone to sink and football can always surprise you. Is it hard? Fuck, yes: it’s very, very, very hard, and every day it’s harder, but we have to believe and we have to defend our professional dignity. We have no reason to be ashamed; we are who we are, our abilities are what they are. We have to be realistic too.”



Realism says forget it. Las Palmas need at least four wins now when they have won just once in 10. Málaga have won just once in 17, Deportivo the same – and that was on Friday night, a moment’s hope swiftly lost. Lucas Pérez said he was going to leave his bedroom for the first time in months after their first win since December, a 3-2 victory over Málaga; by Sunday lunchtime he must have felt like locking himself away again. They all must have. This was the one Las Palmas had to win most – for all of them. Levante were the cliff-face they all clung to, but the grip has slipped now, a solitary finger hooked over the edge and buckling, Levante treading on it.

A week ago, Jémez had said that if Las Palmas did not win at Levante they could practically call themselves a second division team. This was huge. The Ciutat de València was packed. “More than words,” ran the slogan. Super Deporte called it a final and, for once, they weren’t so far off. “This match is no joke,” said Marca. Flags were handed out, fans gathering hours before kick-off, the federation of supporters’ clubs calling it “vital”. Inside, it was nosier than ever before. “It’s not just another game,” López had said the previous day.

It was only his fourth game in charge and there was hope now. When López took over, Levante had gone 14 games without victory. They had won six of their first 12 back in the top flight but not once since, their last victory coming at Las Palmas in November, and they were slipping towards the relegation zone. Those below watched, relieved; at Levante, they watched, horrified.



Fifty years old, a Levante season ticket holder as a kid, a former player, and a man who had coached everywhere in the east – Benidorm, Cartagena, Catarroja, Alcoyano, the youth teams at Valencia, Villarreal, and Levante – but never in the first division, López was on the bus with Levante B when he was told.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paco López has galvanised his boyhood club by winning 10 points from a possible 12 as manager. Photograph: Bagu Blanco/Rex/Shutterstock

“I want us to be bold, brave,” he said. “We’re a good team, we have good players. It might be a cliche but my diagnosis is that psychology will be very important; I want to change our emotional state.” He spoke to the players, one-on-one and collectively, trying to convince them that they could play a bit.



A bit? A lot. Watching José Morales on Sunday, he wasn’t wrong. Hunched he may be, his movement a little typical, but boy can Morales play: you’d be hard pressed to find a player who has produced more moments of bamboozling brilliance in a single game this season than he did against Las Palmas. José Campaña too has benefitted, after a difficult season, and he it was he who got the vital goal. “Since Paco arrived, we’ve had a different ‘face’,” he said afterwards. “It was important for us to still dream.”



Things changed fast. The very day after López took over, Pedro López said the manager was giving them “the confidence we’ve lacked until now.” He added: “It’s become a league of four [against relegation] and we’ll try to win it,” he added. Levante were quickly at the top: they might not always have been brilliant but they were bold and they beat Getafe 1-0, Eibar, 2-1, and drew 1-1 at Girona – the first team to score at Montilivi in seven weeks. Now they’ve beaten Las Palmas too. That’s 10 points from 12 under López, three wins in four games – as many as in the previous 27. The club’s website called it a victory of‚” enourmous proportions”. “We’ve taken a big step,” the manager said.



And how. It was open, exciting, and frantic at times, enough for a collective heart attack. Chances were missed at both ends, if more at Levante’s end: by full time, Las Palmas had racked up 17 shots, Levante 11.



With five minutes left it was 1-1. Levante were down to 10 men, Coke Andújar sent off in the 85th minute for a wild challenge, Las Palmas’s subs leaping from the bench. But if they saw an opportunity, it slipped them by.



López took off Roger, a forward who had missed two wonderful chances, and reinforced the side with Sergio Postigo. But it wasn’t over and nor were Levante going to settle for the draw, for hanging on, even though a point suited them more. Morales had made both Roger’s chances, and there was time for him to make another. As Las Palmas attacked, Levante broke, Morales leading the charge into the 92nd minute. At first it was fast, but then, somehow, it all seemed to happen in slow motion. Morales put the brakes on, cut inside, almost at walking pace, and calmly laid the ball to Campaña, as if there was no need to go anywhere in a hurry. Amidthe noise, the tension, the fear and the exhaustion, Campaña paused, waited, opened up his body and then softly, delicately, sent the ball bending and dipping gently into the corner, his first ever goal in primera keeping his team there.



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“I don’t know how I got there: I was dead,” he said. Levante were alive, racing into the corner of the ground to join him. Players, coaches, staff, physios, all piling on, fans going wild. Amid the celebrations Ruben Rochina was sent off. As Paco López broke from the pack and headed back to the bench, he brushed down the front of his jumper, composing himself. There were a few seconds left – enough, as it turned out for Morales to almost add a ludicrously good third, but not enough for Las Palmas. And at the final whistle, everyone ran on again, going wild, a portly kit man kicking a bottle in delight, Campaña lying on the turf and giggling. A handful of Las Palmas fans clapped their players who clapped back, sadly. They knew. The rest of the stadium chanted “Levante!”.



“The goal was a liberation,” Campaña said; the reaction said it all. Down the corridor and into the dressing room, they cracked open the beer and cranked up the reggaeton, Échame la Culpa thumping. “There’s a lot of happiness in there, and I understand that,” López said. “These players have suffered for along time; they deserve to celebrate. Winning, and winning the way we did, a game like this in the last minute, is like winning a title. You celebrate that the way you’re supposed to.”

Talking points

So, tweetstar Al-Thani is heading down – but don’t expect him to take responsibility. Instead, there are excuses, fingers pointed, and thinly veiled threats. “If he wants to make the relationship between Qatar and Spain tense, he’ll see. But I’ll always wish him the best, may he live many years,” Málaga’s owner said of the city’s mayor, having decided that now is the time to talk, if not actually to offer up any explanation whatsoever, except to blame it all on the previous sporting director, who he overruled and imposed upon.



Gypsy kings in the Bernabéu. “Obli-Oblak, cada día te quiero mas,” sing the Atlético fans, to the tune of Djobi Djoba. Obli, Oblak, every day I love you more. On Sunday, especially: he was superb as Atlético made it five years without a league defeat at the Bernabéu, Antoine Griezmann equalising after Ronaldo had opened the scoring. Atlético maintained their four-point lead over Madrid. Valencia, meanwhile, move ahead of them and into third, with a one-point lead, after a Rodrigo goal saw them defeat Espanyol.

And, erm, Sevilla, ladies and gentlemen. Beaten again, hammered again, in fact – and now seventh, out of Europe and three points behind Betis.