It took 147 days for Rayo Vallecano to walk out for a competitive game on the Avenida de Albufera and 24 minutes and 56 seconds for them to walk off again. Half of those had been spent watching thousands of paper planes touch down on the turf, play suspended while a message was delivered, over and over, until it was impossible to avoid. Forced from their home, the team from the barrio had been away for five months.
On the bright Saturday afternoon that they came back, there were just 13 minutes of football, a fans’ protest instead forcing the abandonment of their match with Athletic Club, the latest episode in a never-ending story. The last time there had been a league game here was a victory over Villarreal in May. A lot has happened since: little Rayo, Rayo Vallecano, had played a European final, 11,000 fans heading to Leipzig where, as the banner perfectly put it, they knew no greater victory than being with you in defeat.
Iñigo Pérez, the manager who took them there, had departed. And Óscar Trejo, the man who gave up the armband over treatment of staff – the best thing he could do as captain was to stop being captain – had retired and been immortalised the way the barrio does best: in graffiti four storeys high. Then, in late July, the Madrid government suspended the agreement that allows them to use the ground in return for €81,784 (£69,094) a year.
The cup, the coach and the captain were not coming back. As a new season began, nor were any of them. Rayo’s president, Raúl Martín Presa, said he was furious with the council, locking the gates to keep their technicians out and accusing them of condemning the club to segunda.
But when the report described the ground as unsafe and unhealthy, Rayo’s fans knew they were right: they had been saying so for years, relieved to be finally heard. The ground’s upkeep was the tenants’ responsibility but – like so much else – it had been abandoned, left to ruin. They were furious with the president they believe condemns them to a fate far worse that relegation, a man they could not despise more and who despises them back, of whom they ask just one thing, as often as they can: for him to leave.
Last season players had complained about conditions, forced to train at Getafe and play at Leganés; as the new season began they would have to do so again. After a long summer and three home games played 20km south, where 4,280, 4,529, and 3,742 came to see Alavés, Racing and Espanyol, respectively – collectively fewer than in a single afternoon in Vallecas – they were finally back. Leganés had been left three-quarters empty, boycotted by supporters, but in football terms it had been good to them, which sums Rayo up: all wrong but somehow all right.
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