Bryan Zaragoza finds his feet again to tie Barcelona’s second string in knots | La Liga

“These things are in me,” Bryan Zaragoza said. “You don’t learn this, you have it. And I have it.” La Liga’s second smallest player, 5ft 5in of fun, was wearing its biggest smile, more than a hint of mischief in there. He had only gone and done it again. The cheeky kid with a twinkle in his eye and a twinkle in his toes too, who grew up idolising Lionel Messi, watching videos of Ronaldinho, following Neymar and playing football on the streets of 4 de Diciembre, Málaga, had left Barcelona on the floor once more. This was naughty.

In early October 2023 Bryan had taken unbeaten Barcelona apart, scoring twice for Granada en route to a 2-2 draw, his life turned upside down. A year on, he took unbeaten Barcelona apart again, scoring one and providing another for Osasuna en route to a 4-2 win, life turned back upright. Two meetings, one assist, three goals, can I play you every week? Only goal doesn’t do justice to the night Los Carmenes had then and El Sadar had now. “Magical,” Bryan called it, Osasuna’s first win over Barcelona in 12 years and among their most memorable ever, emulating a feat from four decades earlier when Diego Maradona scored twice. It definitely doesn’t do justice to what he had done.

And what Bryan had done was, well, Bryan. No academy product, he was always a bit different. He played futbol sala at Cruz de Humilladero, run by Brahim Díaz’s dad, Sufiel, but mostly he played in the streets of a neighbourhood among the most humble in Málaga, doing things no one else could do and he wasn’t supposed to. A place that Pepe Zamora, his coach at Tiro de Pichon, admitted could be “conflictive” and where kids could be be “hard to coach”, Bryan is a better player for it. “There are no street footballers left; what there are are robots,” Zamora told Marca, “not Bryan.” Fran Alcoy, another childhood coach, described him as a Garrincha. And his manager at Poli Ejido, Tito García, said he was like something from another time and place, like a footballer from the favela.

Bryan had been to Poli Ejido, in the fourth tier, on loan from Granada B, in 2020. Turned down many times, including by Málaga, he had joined Granada at 18 but they weren’t sure he would make it, professional football a different world. When he faced Barcelona, he was just beginning his first season in primera, a place some wondered if he belonged. He had been vital in bringing them up from segunda, but this was something else, or so it goes. Instead, he scored three and assisted one in eight weeks, then came the Catalans. Bryan scored after 17 seconds and again on half an hour. Jules Koundé hadn’t been dribbled past all season; Bryan did it twice in the same move, tying him in a cartoon knot.

This time, 12 months on, it was Iñaki Pena who was left bamboozled, wondering where he had gone and how the ball had ended up in his net again. Bryan had already delivered a gorgeous cross for Ante Budimir to head Osasuna into the lead on Saturday when he was suddenly whizzing away again. As he approached Barcelona’s goalkeeper, he rolled the ball under his studs, waltzed past the man he’d made look the other way and tucked it into an open net, the whole thing so easy he might as well have winked on his way. “That’s inside and it just comes out,” he said, the 4-2 win secured, Barcelona beaten at last.

Barcelona had won seven of seven before arriving in Pamplona; one more and they would equal their best ever start to a season, eight from eight under Tata Martino. Hansi Flick, though, decided to rotate his team. With eight injuries and the Champions League to come on Tuesday – their sixth game in 17 days – he rested five starters: Alex Balde, Marc Casadó, Raphinha, Lamine Yamal and Iñigo Martinez all began on the bench. Their centre-backs were 17 and 19, a full-back 22. Their average age, even with Robert Lewandowski on the pitch, was just over 23. And he was withdrawn with the score 2-1, even though there was still a comeback to chase. “Iñi is the only defender with experience but he has many minutes,” Flick said before the game. Afterwards he said: “I think it was necessary; I had no other choice.”

That was not entirely true, rational though his reasoning was. Prioritising Young Boys over Osasuna was a slight surprise, although having lost their opening Champions League game they can’t afford mistakes on Tuesday. Prioritising Getafe at home over Osasuna was too. After a tough midweek win, the kind of fixture you just want to get through, he revealed that staff had “told me this is normal against Getafe”; there might have been a similar warning here. There is something special about El Sadar, already the classic hard place to go and redeveloped recently, one of only two grounds with rail seating. Osasuna hadn’t won away but were unbeaten with three wins from four at home. It was there too that Barcelona’s last run had come to an end.

And they had Bryan. He had needed this, needed them, awakening something in him, bringing it out. The last time he had played Barcelona, he got an international call-up, just nine games into his top-flight career, and a €15m move to Bayern Munich. And that was about that. There was something almost inevitable about it not working out, something incongruous about Bryan in Bavaria. Thomas Tuchel didn’t seem convinced and didn’t exactly help. Few did, few could: this was not a dressing room of Spanish speakers. “When I got there it was hard for me to believe where I was,” he admitted. “I saw Harry Kane, Thomas Müller, Jamal Musiala: top players I had been watching.” He played only 171 minutes. And so, having initially said he was not keen to go out on loan, this summer he accepted a move back. Osasuna paid a €200,000 loan fee for the season.

He has already played more than three times as many minutes back in Spain. There had been electric moments, flashes of who he is, but something was missing. This weekend, Barcelona again, he got his first goal. “I wasn’t so bad before and I am not so good now,” he insisted. “The truth is, I’ve not had a good time of it. I knew there were high expectations and I didn’t start as I would have liked. I didn’t have bad games but nor did I have good ones and the fans always supported me. Today I wanted to pay them back.” When he scored the second, he waggled his fingers like he’d trapped them in a drawer, woah, before putting them to his ears. Just listen to the noise, El Sadar going wild. Then he stood there, shrugging like Brahim. How’s that, then? That, my friend, is bloody brilliant.

It all was, not just him. El Sadar, especially. This was Osasuna’s fourth win in five this season; no one in Europe has picked up more points at home. Barcelona’s rotations took nothing from this: “We’re a humble club and it’s not every day that you beat Barcelona,” Bryan insisted. “This was the kind of night that stays with you for ever,” coach Vicente Moreno said, one where “you have to be perfect and everything went right”. At 2-0 up after Bryan’s goal, tearing into Barcelona, Osasuna had gifted them a way back early in the second half, but then Abel Bretones – who learned everything he knows at Real Oviedo – belted in a third and Budimir scored the fourth from the penalty spot. A brilliant late strike from Lamine made it 4-2. “The effort from the players was titanic,” Moreno said.

“Osasuna devour children,” ran the headline in AS. “Legendary,” Diario de Navarra called it. Forward Rubén García didn’t know what to call it, so he asked. “Complete the phrase,” he wrote on social media the following morning. “Yesterday was …” Jesus Areso did the same: “Headlines, please”, he requested. “Let’s make some noise!” Budimir wrote. Standing by the dressing room door, Pablo Ibáñez grinned, a big night ahead. “We’ll celebrate this; it’s been a while since we had a day off and tomorrow we have a day off, so we’ll do what we can.” As for Moreno, he was off home. “I’m going to go back, sit on the sofa, watch the highlights of the other games, have a couple of hours’ calm and then I’ll think about Getafe,” he said. “And maybe now I’ll be a bit nicer for my family to live with.”

As for Bryan Zaragoza, sitting in the press room reliving another grand night against Barcelona, there was a twinkle in his eye. “Have a good weekend,” he said, getting up to go. “I will.”