Die meister, die besten, les grandes equipes, the Getafe?! You can almost hear the needle scratch. It is 13 years since Mathieu Flamini played in a Champions League final but he might get the chance to play in the competition again. The man who helped find a way of turning waste into renewable energy has helped turn Getafe into one of the best teams on the continent. Just over a year after turning up for a trial, a 33-year-old biochemical pioneer released by Crystal Palace who hadn’t played football for six months, the former Arsenal midfielder could be returning to the biggest stage of all – and with the most unlikely of clubs.

Just look at the league table.

Now look again.

Yes, that really is Getafe in a Champions League place. Not even the Zombie Porn got them this excited. The club that called upon Jesus Christ in jeans, a bodybuilding dwarf, a man laying an egg, a two-headed motorbike rider, Getafe Tinder, and a melancholic monster to try to fill their ground, a catalogue of commercials that didn’t always succeed in cramming the Coliseum, might just have stumbled upon the best way to pack the place: by getting teams such as Manchester City, Juventus and Bayern Munich to come to town. Bayern Munich have been here before – in the Uefa Cup a decade ago – but City haven’t. Nor have Juve Inter, Liverpool or Dortmund. Because Getafe haven’t been here before either.

On Saturday, goals from Jaime Mata and Jorge Molina helped Getafe defeat Rayo Vallecano 2-1 in one of the first division’s 20 Madrid derbies to go fourth. It was early and there were other games to come, the chance to lose that place, but by the end of the weekend Getafe were still there and by the end of the season, they might be too: Sevilla, beaten by Barcelona, are two points behind and slipping, no longer competitors; Valencia, who have drawn 15 times, are six points behind; Real Betis trail by three; and no one expected Alavés, just two points off, to be there then or to stay there now. Abelardo Fernández’s team are this season’s great overachievers – or they would be if it wasn’t for Getafe.

Getafe have the division’s third smallest average attendance at 9,874, only above Eibar (5,416) and Huesca (4,733), and most people ignore them, when they’re not sneering at them. On Saturday one of the two big non-sports newspapers didn’t bother sending a match reporter – perhaps it was too far away – while the other gave it barely 100 words, but this is huge.

| GOAL! |



Jaime Mata opens the scoring for Getafe!



Nine goals in his last 12 #LaLiga games 🔥 pic.twitter.com/oITID1TLo7 — Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) February 23, 2019

| GOAL! |



Getafe are back in front!



Fine work from Portillo sent Mata through, who squared for Molina 👏 pic.twitter.com/0pt7iJMSyn — Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) February 23, 2019

All 11 of Getafe’s players on Saturday – all 13, counting the substitutes – cost €4.2m and over half of that went on a single player, Dakonam Djene. Lionel Messi makes almost that much in a month. And they have the sixth smallest salary limit in La Liga, at €39.25m. That’s a budget one 16th of Barcelona’s, at €632.97m. Madrid’s limit is €566.53m, Atlético’s €293m, Valencia’s €164.69m, Sevilla’s €163m and Villarreal’s €109m. You have to go down another 10 teams to reach Getafe in that table.

“We’re going to Europe,” the fans chanted as the final minutes slipped away. Some of their players have been there before, if only for a handful of games, but this is not a team built to be where it is. More of Getafe’s players have experience of relegation than Europe and most have played more seasons in the second division than the first. Their goalkeeper, David Soria, wasn’t wanted by Sevilla; centre-back Leandro Cabrera joined from relegation-bound Cotrone in Italy; right back Damian Suárez arrived off the back of two relegations in a row; central midfielder Nemanja Maksimovic wasn’t wanted by Valencia and, alongside him, Flamini didn’t have a team. To their right, Dimitri Foulquier spent last season at Granada, Watford and Strasbourg. And as for their strike force, Mata is playing his first season in Primera and most people thought that 36-year-old Molina had definitively left his first division days behind him.

Their manager, Jose Bordalás, has been coaching for 25 years but he is in only his second season in Primera. He took Alcorcón to the play-offs and Alavés to promotion but, much like many of his players, he was seen as a man who was all well and good in the second division but not suited to the first and it wasn’t until he brought Getafe up that he had the chance to compete in Primera himself. Once there, he proved those prejudices wrong: when he took over, Getafe were second bottom of the second division, but they went up, finished eighth in their first season and are now fourth. This is the best Getafe in history, and Molina has become the oldest player to reach 10 league goals since Ferenc Puskas.

Put bluntly, opponents testify to how bloody hard it is to beat them

No wonder Getafe’s fans again chanted for Molina to get a Spain call-up, but it’s not just him; it’s all of them. This is a team defined by solidity and solidarity. There was something about the way that Mata, who had scored a brilliant first and was sent clean through by a wonderful pass from Francisco Portillo, rolled the ball into Molina to score the second which summed it up. They both have 10 now: no Spaniard has more. “There are no egos in this team,” Molina insisted afterwards. And, asked if he would pick Molina for Spain, Antunes replied: “If I was the national team manager, I’d take the entire Getafe squad. You don’t get to see it, but the soul that we put into every session is the hostia.” The hostia is the holy host, the consecrated bread: the business, in other words. Unbelievable. Which neatly defines what this team are doing.

“We work to the limit, and you can see that in the games: we play the way we train,” Antunes added. In games, you see the influence of a manager for whom, as one player puts it, every defeat is a “death”: intelligent, analytical and exceptionally demanding. His team is tough, aggressive, direct, everyone clear about their role. But there has been a growing irritation at Getafe over suggestions that they’re dirty, masters of the dark arts, and they have good reason to feel that way: there’s much more to it, greater variety than many admit. “A team of thugs doesn’t reach sixth in the league,” Jorge Molina said.

Rayo Vallecano’s defender Jordi Amat is closed down by Jaime Mata, left, and Damian Suárez of Getafe. Photograph: Víctor Lerena/EPA

They don’t reach fourth, either. It was a month ago when Molina said that and Getafe are even higher now. “Too good,” Mata called it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, that’s for sure. Bordalás’s contract doesn’t include a bonus for reaching the Champions League: no one thought it necessary. And yet it is a genuine possibility now. The season is two-thirds of the way in and there was something about the way they won this game that suggests they can hold on: a security about them, a sense of control. Put bluntly, opponents testify to how bloody hard it is to beat them.

“Of course I’m dreaming of Europe; who wouldn’t be?” Antunes said. “But we haven’t achieved anything yet, not even survival.” Like his full-back, a 31-year-old signed for €500,000 from Dynamo Kyiv, another footballer recovered for the cause and the third most expensive player on the pitch this weekend, Bordalás was trying not to get carried away. But he couldn’t help smiling. “We have 39 points; that’s a lot of points,” he said. “There’s a long way to go and we know there are teams with far, far greater potential than ours. We lack things that other teams have but we make up for that by competing and enjoying it. We’re making a lot of people happy: no one thought we would be here. In football good moments come around only rarely, and our fans have had bad moments, so let them dream. You should always dream.”

Talking points

• Lionel Messi scored his 50th hat-trick, going all the way back to this one

12 years ago. He also provided a superb, soft assist for Luis Suárez to score the fourth. He carried a not-all-that-good Barcelona to victory at the Sanchez Pizjuán, and in doing so he might just have carried them to another league title. Not quite single-handed, but about as single-handed as it gets.

To recap: an astonishing hat-trick, another huge win, an assist, maybe a league too. Yeah, whatever. All so normal. Just another day. Next! Photograph: Marcelo del Pozo/Reuters

• Álvaro Morata stuck his finger in his ear, drew a TV screen with his fingers and, giggling, called for the VAR. “We didn’t know if we could celebrate,” Diego Simeone admitted afterwards, but Morata already was, his tongue wedged in his cheek.

Looks sublime from every angle 🤩pic.twitter.com/vcCWsikoE6 — Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) February 24, 2019

• Levante were good, but lost. Real Madrid were not, but won. They got two penalties, the second so surreal as to be almost funny. Casemiro took off, untouched, and “won” the penalty. Gareth Bale took it, scored, and refused to be touched.

| 🤔 |



Gareth Bale steps up to take it from the spot but shrugs off the celebration...



🗣 @BumperGraham "It's the Cristiano Ronaldo mode of I'm not happy everybody please pay attention..." pic.twitter.com/1RUMMXLBWy — Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) February 24, 2019

• The assist for Huesca’s equaliser at Espanyol. Woof!