2023-05-06 08:00:10
Torelló“Osasuna is a nexus of union between all the people of Navarre, regardless of what each one may think about the political, social or cultural aspect. Osasuna, like the Sanfermines, we love it, it unites us, it makes us feel special. who is from here, whether he likes football or not, he feels part of the team”, emphasizes Javier Flaño (Noain, 1984), myth pink, at the gates of the club’s second Cup final: today against Real Madrid (10 p.m., La 1). “Osasuna is an example of how a humble and simple club can also do great things and have moments of glory. Madrid are favourites, but Osasuna, always with a lot of work, with the illusion and with the people’s push, they can have their options,” he says. Flaño will go to La Cartuja as another fan, as he already did in 2005 in the lost final against Betis. He then traveled to the Vicente Calderón by bus from the village, just a few months before becoming a permanent fixture at Sadar. He explains this to illustrate the sense of belonging that Osasuna awakens.
He is the author of what, for most, is the most important goal in the club’s history: in the 2014-2015 season, the team needed a point on the last day at the Sabadell field, which had already been relegated, for avoid a relegation to Segona B which would most likely have led to the disappearance. The team was losing 2-0 in the 18th minute, but ended up equalizing with a last-gasp goal from Flaño. “I haven’t been back to Sabadell since that day, but I want to because it’s part of my life. It’s a day marked in red that I’ll never forget,” he said. He will take the shirt of that day to Sevilla. The following season Osasuna went up to Primera after overcoming Nàstic de Tarragona and Girona in the play-offwith the twins Javier and Miguel Flaño on the grass and Xavier Riera (Badalona, 1973) in the stands.
Riera had already been in Sabadell, with 2,500 more Osasuna fans: “Ten minutes were left, but I thought I couldn’t hold on any longer, because it was like watching my life disappear, and I left the field crying. When I was in the street and I heard a lot of chatter, I got in my car, I turned on the radio, I heard that we had made it 2-1 and I ran back, just in time to see it 2-2. It was crazy, a release “. Riera remembers that as a child a doctor advised him to spend the summer in a less hot climate due to a blood disease and he went to Pamplona for three or four summers, to the house of an uncle who had been an assistant referee in Segona. “Osasuna, which means in Basque Health, was my cure. My uncle used to tell me “You with the poor, nothing from Barça”, and that message got into my blood, that it was exactly my problem”, he says with a laugh. Already as an adult, he brought sausages to Patxi Izco, president of Osasuna between 2002 and 2012 and recently passed away.
“Here they can see the players, touch them”
And he goes on to say: “I called to become a partner of the Osasuna l’Asier foundation and they asked me what day I was born, when I hadn’t yet, and they told me I had to wait. He was born Sunday and Monday I called them again. Here 90% of the people are from Barça, or more, and I knew that every day that passed it would be more difficult if I was from Osasuna.” At five months, Asier already went to the Sadar and today he is already one pink more: he started the week blowing out twelve candles and will end it in La Cartuja with his father: “It’s the best present in the world. If we win I think I’ll cry and maybe jump on the field.” This week the Barça classmates asked him for songs to encourage Osasuna.
For the match, the father will wear the shirt from the 2005 Cup final, which he lived in at Plaza del Castillo, in Pamplona, and the son, the one given to him by Oier Sanjurjo, captain until last summer. Xavier points out that the close and open nature of Osasuna has captivated Asier: “Here they can see the players, touch them. Asier has a thousand photos. You meet them on the street, you can talk to them. It’s all the more real.” They have been partners since 2016 and have their seats in Sadar, near Flaño.
“What we have lived together around Osasuna is priceless. Seeing him happy and proud, how he sings, how he gets nervous, how excited he is, it’s like Kings Day, it fills me as a father” . I wanted him to be from Osasuna so that there would be this permanent link, because it is a school of life: “The easiest thing would be to be from Barça or Madrid, but teams like Osasuna are life: in life there are ups and downs lows, you’re not always right and you’re not always wrong. And besides, people here never stop cheering, even if they lose. Effort is rewarded more than success.”
Win or lose, Asier will be wearing an Osasuna shirt to school on Monday. And Flaño says: “We already have the joy, but winning would be an even greater joy, brutal!”.
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