The list of events and extraordinary events of the Osasuna-Madrid family is so extensive that its trace appears even in the great snowfall of Filomena. The worst storm in decades was one of the few that remained to be seen in a duel that had a piglet dressed in white trotting on the field, a match suspended due to the launch of firecrackers, Míchel saying that he would rather “lose a game than life” , the most remembered victory in rojilla history (0-4), pitfalls between players on a highway, and the first referee punished with the refrigerator. Among many other things. And also snow. That weekend of 2021, that was the game on Saturday night and, with the landings suspended in Barajas, the white team’s plane was the last one that could take off on Friday, to the anger of Zinedine Zidane, just before the city will be completely isolated.
The two Cup finalists never stopped offering news, starting with the enormous tension of the eighties and nineties in El Sadar. “There were things that shouldn’t have happened, but on both sides,” Eugenio Bustingorri (Zulueta, Navarra, 59 years old), acknowledges and points out, a great reference to that Osasuna with whom Madrid suffered in Pamplona. Those parties, as soon as the rojillos rose in 1980, were pure fire, children of the political and social moment in a place like Navarra. “A very strong rivalry was created. We focused on sports and what happened in the stands got out of hand. I would separate the two areas”, Bustingorri qualifies. On the other shore, Agustín Rodríguez, goal of the merengue squad from 80 to 90, frames that “hot atmosphere” in the “political theme of the north.” “There it was more difficult for us to get good results,” he admits.
There were things that shouldn’t have happened, but for both parties
EUGENIO BUSTINGORRI, an Osasunist reference in the eighties
The list of incidents in those first dates is difficult to cover. A pig thrown onto the grass with the shirt and seven of Juanito (82-83, 2-1), the former white player who was later seen at the Sanfermines with Enrique Martín. The closure of El Sadar for one match due to the impact of a screw on Jorge Valdano’s head and a chestnut on Ricardo Gallego’s right eye that caused an eye injury (86-87, 1-0). Or a cup duel (86-87, 1-2) that began with the death of referee Emilio Guruceta in a traffic accident and ended with Madrid leaving the stadium in police vans. “That happened to us a lot in the north, also when we arrived at the hotel. For me, the worst place was Atotxa, with people half a meter away. They were throwing steel balls at you. ‘You put on, I can’t’, he told the referee”, says Agustín.
Until, in Pamplona, everything exploded at 88-89, when the game was suspended in minute 43 due to firecrackers being thrown at Buyo. It was then that Míchel, pointed out by the public as the one who ordered the withdrawal to the locker room, sentenced: “I’d rather lose a game than my life.” The 1-0 that night had been scored by Pizo Gómez, to whom shortly after, when he signed for Atlético, Míchel dedicated a poisoned letter to him on a road: “You are our idol.” Sadar was closed for two games and the remaining time was played in Zaragoza, where the referee ate a penalty in favor of Osasuna and Hugo tied at 85 (1-1).
One fact attests to the torment of the whites in Pamplona: between 1980 and 1994 (Osasuna’s relegation), it was their fourth stadium in the League with fewer wins: 28%, after Camp Nou (13%), Pizjuán (14%) and Mestalla (21%). “They were very tough matches, with a lot of contact. For them it was more complicated. For whatever reason, we had the thread on them”, recalls Bustingorri. “They got a great return on what they generated. They defended very well and were intense”, justifies Agustín.
“In my country make an appointment at the dentist”
In the full boiling of those clashes, the rojilla story reached its ecstasy with the 0-4 that placed him at the Bernabéu on the eve of the 1990 Campanadas. A txupinazo with grapes. “It was a bit like: ‘Oh, God, but we do look like Madrid.’ It was an exchange of roles”, recalls Bustingorri. For several years, in El Sadar he hung a banner that was as brief as it clarified the impact of the feat: “0-4 ″.
Despite the fact that in 2004 he thrashed again in Chamartín (0-3), no one doubts that, for many Osasunistas, this has been the greatest victory in their history and, of course, the great afternoon of glory for the Pole Jan Urban, who he scored a triplet in 40 minutes, the only one of his career (the fourth was scored by Iñigo Larrainzar). Coming from a humble family of miners, Osasuna had signed him the previous season of Gornik Zabrze and, during the five that he remained in Pamplona, many teammates in the dressing room often wondered what such a good player was doing there (he played 184 games and scored 58 so many).
The relegation of the Navarrese in 1994 closed three abrasive decades and, after their return in 2000, the boiler began to lose temperature. Although the news did not stop. For example, when Pérez Burrull sent off Juanfran Torres from Osasuna, and former white squad player, in 2009 for simulating two falls in the area despite having been knocked down. Osasuna was bottom in January. “In the second action, I whistle a penalty, but I hear through the earpiece: ‘No, no, no, shoot, shoot, shoot’. You get blocked, but if your partner corrects you… Also, I have to admonish him, and it’s the second time… I try to take all the time I can and see how I do… ‘Are you sure?’, I told the line”, revealed the collegiate journalist Sergio Amadoz in the book Not even God gives up here, a sentimental chronicle of Osasunism. That action made Pérez Burrull the first braid sanctioned and, things in life, the season ended with Juanfran saving the team from him on the last day with a goal against Madrid (2-1).
The previous campaign, the whites had won the League in El Sadar (a hell already tamed); Before, “a 15-centimeter oil can” had fallen there (according to the record); and in 2011, Pandiani, after a spat with Cristiano, warned him that in his country he would have “had to make an appointment at the dentist.” More wood. In any case, they were already other times (Madrid has nine visits without losing), although the recent night of Filomena, Zidane left the stadium with a draw and cracking down on everything: “This has not been a football game,” he protested before to stay the night in Pamplona, because he could not return that night or the next day.
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