There was silence then applause: Gerard Moreno returns to haunt Espanyol at last

He made his other dad mad and a policeman put his head in his hands, but at least Gerard Moreno said sorry and in the end they couldn’t help but forgive him. In fact, they were happy for him, the defeated Espanyol fans who briefly fell silent when he hurt them standing to hand him an ovation when he headed off, the long walk from the pitch ending with another win, a bit like old times. On Saturday night, the Villarreal striker scored for the third week in a row; it was the first time in two years he had a run like that, his best days finished or so it goes. At 33, it was also the first time he had ever scored against the team where it all began. Which felt right somehow, even when it was wrong.

This was a big night. Espanyol came on to the pitch with rescue dogs, the two teams posing together, every man in blue and white with a mutt of their own: Marko Dimitrovic led a huge alsatian, Ty Dolan held a husky and Roberto Fernández petted a black puppy. Defeated only once at home, these are the best days they have had for years. The club whose former owner, remote-control car impresario Chen Yansheng, had promised Champions League football in three years and instead presided over two relegations, are under new management. They have the most popular manager anyone can remember, a former bus driver and the embodiment of what they want to be. And they kicked off in a European place. Win and they would climb to within two points of their opponents and the final Champions League slot.

Villarreal though came with Moreno, the opponent that was too briefly theirs. “I’m biased but he’s one of the best strikers around,” the coach had said the day before – and that was the Espanyol coach. And just because Manolo González is biased that doesn’t mean he’s wrong; if anyone knew the damage Moreno could do, it is him. Raised in Santa Perpètua, the Morenos were a footballing family: Gerard’s dad was a striker, his brother a No 10, and he was a bit of both. A bit better than both too, he joined Espanyol at eight. When he reached the under-16s, though, Moreno was cut. A 15-year-old who already acted like a professional, serious, a little timid and entirely lacking in ego, he was convinced to join the under-19s at third-tier Badalona. His coach there – his second father, he said – was González, whose journey to the top took quite a lot longer.

This will relaunch your career, González told Moreno, and he wasn’t wrong about that either. The season with the Badalona juvenil started with a 4-1 win against Espanyol B and ended with Moreno having scored 41 times in 32 games. Real Madrid came calling but by then he had given his word to Villarreal, and so it began again, down the east coast. At the end of his first full season in the Villarreal first team, when he scored seven times, he got the chance to go back to Espanyol. But after three years at home, the financial pressure told, reality intervening to see him return to Villarreal in 2018, where he has been ever since, for a while becoming the best striker in Spain, roots always remembered.

Espanyol’s players, including Ty Dolan with a husky, come on to the pitch with rescue dogs as part of a campaign to tackle dog abandonment. Photograph: Urbanandsport/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Football has left its mark on him, the scar on his face caused by falling off a goal when he had climbed up to collect a ball that landed on top of the net, leaving him needing 27 stitches, and Saturday showed that he has left his mark on Espanyol too. As a ballboy, one of Moreno’s fondest memories was celebrating a goal with Raul Tamudo, the club’s greatest striker. Twice the winner of the Zarra trophy as the top scoring Spaniard in La Liga, over his career there would be 108 of his own to celebrate, 39 of them for Espanyol. And yet in 11 years away, he had never had one to celebrate against them. In a dozen years in the top flight Moreno had got goals against every one else – recently promoted Real Oviedo are now the only primera side against whom he hasn’t found the net – but not his own team. When at last he did have reason to, scoring at the eighth attempt this weekend, there still wouldn’t be any celebration. That much, he said, was always clear.

They had been playing 41 minutes when Moreno turned on the edge of the area and struck a first time shot into the corner to give Villarreal a lead which Alberto Moleiro doubled in the second half. The ball had barely hit the net when he lifted his hands like a customer in the Hawthorn Grill. As it did, over on the touchline, cameras caught a moustachioed mosso de esquadra, a Catalan copper, cover his face, gutted. To his left, Espanyol manager González was fuming. His former player, the kid who came from Catalan local football and was an Espanyol fan like him, had done for them. So too had his defenders. For a second there was silence in the stadium and then there was applause.

At least it was him. At least he had left them until last, and apologised when the inevitable finally happened. At least this was a way of mutual showing appreciation, sharing a moment a long time coming and, some feared, soon to be gone – to show happy they were to see him back. It was tempting to think the only thing as bad as ever scoring against Espanyol was never scoring against Espanyol, and that had seemed to be coming closer.

“Only injury has stopped him being the national team’s striker,” González had said. There was a catalogue of muscular problems, continuity denied. The man who scored 18 league goals in 2019-20 and 23 the year after, then tallied nine, seven, 10 and three. Since the start of last season Moreno had missed 176 days through injury. At 33 and with Villarreal using the sales of Álex Baena, Yeremy Pino and Thierno Barry to spend heavily in the summer, Georges Mikautadze becoming the most expensive signing in their history at €31m, Tani Oluwaseyi arriving too, last season’s top scorer Ayoze Pérez and Nicolas Pépé arriving a summer earlier, it seemed that his time might be up. All the more so when he was forced off at half-time on the opening day, a kind of depressing deja vu about it all. He hadn’t scored a goal from open play since that 5-3 win over Barcelona in January 2024.

Gerard Moreno fires a shot at goal against Espanyol. Photograph: Javier Borrego/AFP7/Shutterstock

But then it happened: Moreno returned in a 2-2 draw with Betis. The following week, he scored the opener against Rayo Vallecano. The week after he did the same against Valencia. Now he had done it against Espanyol. In three matches he had scored as many goals as in the whole of last season. Fit again, in 313 minutes, he had more than any of Villarreal’s other centre forwards, still different, still cleverer, still more intuitive, still just, well, better than anyone else. And everyone else is good too: all that in the team that moved briefly in to second, a win away from their best start. “26 points is incredible,” the coach Marcelino García Toral said.

It is also a reality, González insisted. Outside the top three, no one can compete with Villarreal for budget. In the summer only Real Madrid spent more (although Villarreal’s net spend saw them post a profit). Espanyol’s best player, the full-back Carlos Romero, is on loan from Villarreal and Espanyol didn’t want to pay the €150,000 to release him: his replacement was burned up by Tajon Buchanan for the second goal. There has always been a reason Moreno wasn’t there for longer too. “I would love to work with Gerard again,” González had said, “but for now the economics say he is he’s out of reach of Espanyol.”

Instead, all they could do was applaud, so they did, happy for him and hoping that one day their paths can cross again. “I spent many years and I’m so grateful for the affection they show me,” Moreno said at the end, the stands empty now but for a group of Espanyol supporters singing the name of the man who had scored against them at last. “There’s lots of emotion every time I come here, and a lot of respect. Now that I feel good again, all I want to do is enjoy this moment.” And with that he left, the same slightly shy striker he always was slipping down the tunnel and out of sight, waving a little awkwardly as he went.