Welcome to Gilet, population: 3,600 and one hero. This, the Valencia coach Ruben Baraja said, was an apotheosis: the elevation of a human being to the status of God. It might sound like a little bit of an exaggeration -- and, yes, that definition did need looking up in the dictionary -- but at 9:28 p.m. local time on Thursday night, when the explosion hit, as they threw themselves at his feet, thousands and thousands of them lost in the lunacy, it really didn't feel like one.
The highest, most perfect point? Yep, that pretty much covers it.
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Javi Guerra is 19 and looks it, his face flushed and his hair floppy. He'd only been on the pitch for 3 minutes and 22 seconds, introduced with officially 78 seconds remaining -- not enough time to do anything, but just enough enough time to do everything. He'd only been on any pitch ever for 64 minutes -- a kid playing just his third LaLiga game as a sub -- and he had never scored a goal. Not even in training: "I swear it," teammate Hugo Duro said. He had never even taken a shot. Now, for the first time ever, he did.
With the clock on 92.04.
With the scoreboard showing 1-1 against Valladolid.
With Valencia, the team he supported from the tiny town some 20 minutes north, looking into the abyss, trapped in the relegation zone, desperate for something, anything.
With his wrong foot.
What a moment for 19-year old Javi Guerra 🤩
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) April 27, 2023
His winner pulls Valencia out of the relegation zone 📈 pic.twitter.com/gg5kEtnhXL
Well, he said, there was nothing else on, and no pass to play. And so, with a sway of the hips, Javi Guerra turned inside and started to run until he reached the edge of the area. It took him three touches to get there and then he swung his left leg, the bad one. "It came off OK," he said, which was one way of putting it. A golazo, Edison Cavani called it, which was another, and yet that too was inadequate. The ball flew through the air, all of them on board, and went straight into the corner of the net and straight into history. Then 42,023 people absolutely lost their minds.
Just about the only person that didn't was Carlos Marchena. As the Valencia assistant manager sidled up to the fourth official for a quiet word, everyone else let it all out. There was so much to get out, it was like an exorcism. On the sideline, staff fell to their knees. Baraja hugged at everyone he could as hard as he could, trying to throw his arms around the world. The world was throwing its arms around this kid that had rescued them.
As Guerra ran toward the corner wearing a look of amused incredulity, Jose Luis Gaya, the Valencia captain, grabbed him by the face and held him. There was a race to join them, players piling up. In the stands, Thierry leapt about. A little boy called Aitor watched from his father's arms, that look on his dad's face. Samu Lino hugged Guerra like a lost lover, looking like he was going to cry, which maybe he was. Asked what he, a 36-year-old veteran who has scored 437 goals, could say to this kid 17 years his junior who had just scored his first goal, Cavani said: "Thanks."
That was about right, too. "We suffer," Cavani said, and he meant it. You could see it in all of them; it's been there for all to see for months now and it was only getting worse, the tension taking hold of all of them. Guerra had released the pressure, allowing hope back in.
At half time, there had been none. Valencia were second from bottom, a point behind Espanyol and Getafe, two behind Cadiz, three from Almeria and six back from Valladolid, with time running out and no real sign that they could turn it around: not just in Thursday night's match, but the season, their fate. Relegation was increasingly real for only the second time in their history. They'd gifted Valladolid the goal and that had hurt them, sinking them as every set-back seems to, the fragility clear again, the fear inescapable. "This shirt weighs," the coach said.
The only good thing was that they only trailed by one goal. There had been a second-half reaction -- Hugo Duro's introduction, especially, changed things -- and Valencia had scored an equaliser too. Valladolid goalkeeper Jordi Masip took the baffling decision to let Mouctar Diakhaby's header past, sure it was going wide when it wasn't, to make it 1-1. But Valencia could and should have trailed again, when defender Ivan Fresneda somehow missed a glorious chance, smashing the bar from six yards. They had escaped that, though a draw didn't really help Valencia very much. When Guerra collected the ball, they were still in the relegation zone.
Here, though, came the rescue mission, from an unexpected man, a kid, soon to be much more than that. "The magic of Mestalla," Baraja said. When Guerra's shot hit the net, Valencia were hauled clear, that one shot taking them two points -- and two places -- clear of the relegation zone.
Nothing is done, of course -- the fight against relegation is absurdly tight, teams pulling out and being pulled back in again all the time -- but this was huge, the emotion explosive. "It's a continuous fight. This allows us to keep going, it allows us to keep thinking we can do it," Baraja said.
It was, Baraja noted, the same date as when he scored to complete a dramatic comeback against Espanyol some 21 years earlier. That goal allowed Valencia to go on to win the league; this goal from Guerra gave them the hope that they could stay in it, which is why the other parallel people drew was with one scored by Miguel Tendillo some 40 years ago this week. Scored on the final day against Madrid, it saw Valencia survive, a goal they say changed history.
On Thursday night, they said the same thing about the first shot in Javi Guerra's career, a 19-year-old saving his team, maybe even his club such is the crisis, the place going wild. If he never gets a goal again, he and they will always have this.
At the end, everyone went for him. The next day, there was a message from the council of Gilet, where he is the one in the 3,601 population. "What are you doing?" it read. "Are you serious? You did had that planned for your first Valencia goal? The place, the moment, the way you did it... congratulations, star!" From the stands, the grandfather who drove him everywhere, watched. Fans sang a name that most in Spain hadn't heard of 10 minutes before, but they have now.
"I am a Valencia fan and seeing Mestalla like this is a joy," Javier Guerra Moreno said. The following morning, he still couldn't quite get his head around it. "I have no words to describe what happened last night," he wrote, but there was one.
How about apotheosis? Yep, that pretty much covers it.