Athletic Club beat Mallorca 4-2 on penalties on Saturday to win their 24th Copa del Rey title and their first since 1984, ending a 40-year drought in a nerve-wracking final in Seville.
Athletic’s 23-year-old keeper Julen Agirrezabala saved a spot kick from Mallorca’s Manu Morlanes and Nemanja Radonjic missed the goal with his effort, while Athletic’s penalty takers were flawless in their execution, scoring all of their first four.
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The game had finished 1-1 after extra time. Despite Bilbao dominating proceedings, Dani Rodríguez fired in a rebound from a corner to give Mallorca the lead in the 21st minute, but Oihan Sancet equalised in the 50th minute.
Iker Muniain received the trophy from Spanish King Felipe VI before lifting it high for his team and fans to celebrate.
Since their last Copa del Rey triumph, Athletic had lost six straight finals, including in 2020 and 2021.
Only Barcelona and their 31 Copas have more than Athletic, despite the team from Bilbao fielding players only from or near Spain’s northern Basque Country region.
Athletic’s only previous silverware in the last 40 years has been two Spanish Supercopa triumphs, in 2015 and 2021.
“This is incredible. Our fans have always been behind us and now it is time to enjoy this,” Athletic forward Nico Williams said. “We have been fighting for this for a long time.”
NBA great Steve Nash, a minority owner of Mallorca, was at the game, as well as Rafael Nadal, a native of the island of Mallorca. Each club had 20,000 tickets for traveling fans at the packed 57,000-seat La Cartuja Stadium. Some 40,000 more fans, mostly for Athletic, were expected to descend on the southern city without tickets.
Information from Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
