Mirandes: This Year’s Cinderella

By: chris | January 25th, 2012

Despite the nonsense about some other matchup in the Copa del Rey right now – can’t quite remember the names of those rather insignificant teams at the moment – the real story is not east, not west, but down. Way down in the third division. Mirandes, a humble little club in the north of Spain, knocked off their third – yes, third – La Liga opponent to get to the Copa del Rey. And doing so with the dagger in the 92nd minute.

They just might be amazing.

Luckily, they have one more chance at being heroes before earning the opportunity to be humiliated by one of the big boys – they’ll get the winner of Mallorca and Athletic, who will then get the winner of Barca/Real and Valencia~~/Levante~~.

It was only the second time a team from the third level of Spanish soccer has reached the last four of the Cup, as Mirandes, who have an annual budget of just over 1.2 million euros ($1.56 million), followed up their unlikely successes against La Liga clubs Villareal and Racing Santander with another heroic display.

“This is amazing,” captain Pablo Infante, a local bank employee who netted the equaliser and provided the assist for the dramatic winner, told Spanish television.

Because sports stories always include “captain and local bank employee” tagging alongside the hero’s name.