After 686 days since his last professional game, the former Swansea City striker Michu finally returned on Thursday evening, but could not prevent Real Oviedo from being knocked out of the Copa Del Rey 4-3 by UCAM Murcia after extra time, despite scoring twice – including a last-minute equaliser.

The 30-year-old started for Oviedo, the club where he began his career and the team he supports, and lasted the whole game, unexpectedly playing 120 minutes that served to test his fitness. He forced extra time with a header in the 93rd minute to make it 3-3, only for UCAM Murcia to grab a deflected winner on 110 minutes.

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This was his first professional appearance since he was withdrawn after an hour of a Europa League game at the Wankdorf stadium in Bern, Switzerland for Napoli in October 2014, unable to continue. “I lasted 60 minutes and then my ankle said ‘enough’,” he recalled.

Here he scored twice in the last seven minutes. UCAM had taken a 3-1 lead but Michu scored from close range after 83 minutes when the goalkeeper spilled a shot from Néstor Susaeta. He then headed in Susaeta’s free kick in added time, to extend his return to two hours. Michu was then booked in the last minute as he appealed for a penalty for handball that would have taken the tie to a shootout.

“I am very pleased about Michu’s goals: that will give him a lot of confidence but the result is such a pity,” said Fernando Hierro, the Oviedo manager.

Top scorer in the Premier League at Christmas 2012, Michu finished the 2012-13 season with 18 league goals, 22 overall. He signed a new four-year contract at the club in January 2013 with the Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins claiming that he was worth £30m, and he was later handed a call-up to the Spain team, but his performances dipped and a persistent ankle injury threatened to end his career.

Michu scored just twice in the league the following year in his second season, not playing after April 2014, and went to Napoli on loan that summer where he was able to play only two league games. He underwent a series of operations on his ankle and although he had offers to join clubs in the Premier League and in Spain’s first division, he turned them down, aware that he was still not fit.

Last Christmas, having rescinded his contract at the Liberty stadium, Michu joined Union Popular Langreo in Spain’s amateur fourth tier, made up of 18 regional divisions, as he made one last attempt to return. His coach there was his brother and he played on an astroturf pitch in front of crowds that numbered in the hundreds. In late August, he joined Real Oviedo in Spain’s Second Division.