At exactly nine o'clock on the evening of February 13, at Eprat Stadium in Barcelona, Spain.
The featured match of La Liga's twenty-third round saw Espanyol host Real Madrid.
The match was about to begin.
Benitez stood in front of the away team's bench, rubbing his fists together as he prepared to welcome the match that was about to come.
He and everyone in the team were filled with fighting spirit and confidence.
Yesterday, on Saturday evening, he had traveled to France to gather intelligence, watching Lyon, their Champions League Round of 16 opponent, play away against Saint-Étienne in a Ligue 1 match, while Barcelona had visited Sporting de Gijón.
As a result, no one had expected that Barcelona would draw!
Over the past few months, ever since the late-November El Clásico, Barcelona had won nine matches in a row.
It could be said that Barcelona had been despair-inducing this season. They had almost put together the most dominant season in La Liga history. Other than losing El Clásico to Real Madrid, they had crushed nearly every opponent.
Yes, there were still more than ten rounds left in the league, but after seeing Barcelona perform so consistently, everyone's first reaction was that the La Liga title was already beyond suspense.
Reality was often even more absurd and even harder to predict.
No one had expected Barcelona to suddenly be held to a draw by Sporting de Gijón.
One-one. Villa scored a goal to equalize.
This was a perfect opportunity for Real Madrid!
As long as they won this match, the gap between the two sides would shrink to seven points, and suspense would return once more.
After all, the two sides still had one El Clásico left—and it would be played at the Bernabéu Stadium.
At Real Madrid's regular tactical