Jesús Navas can’t walk but he carries Sevilla. He’s nearly 39, he’s played 963 professional games and he has an arthritic hip. Every day for the last four years, it has hurt. It hurts when he turns up to training each morning at the ground named after him and it hurts when he plays. It hurt when he won the Europa League and it hurt when he won the European Championship, the last man standing somehow. Some days, it hurts so much even he has to stop; soon, too soon but later than he probably should have done, he will stop for good. Every few days, it hurts so much it scares him.
Thursday was one of those days, worse even than before. Never mind playing in primera, he couldn’t play with his kids. He hadn’t slept all night and couldn’t move. The doctor called the coach worried about him and so the next morning … well, the next morning he was back in Montequinto, where he first started going a quarter of a century ago and where the mini stadium by the dressing room is now called the Jesús Navas, looking for the manager Xavi García Pimienta. “Míster,” he said, “I can help.” So he did, which hurt too.
On Saturday at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, the ball reached Navas on the right of the penalty area. He took a touch to control it with the inside of his foot, watching and waiting for the ball to sit just right. And then, he said: “I hit it with fury, the fury of the whole of Sevilla.” The ball flew diagonally, a rocket racing beyond David Soria into the top corner. And there he was, running off arms wide, thudding at the badge on his chest, tears coming to his eyes, letting it all out, that kid again; the winger they have been watching since 2003 who literally couldn’t leave, suffering anxiety attacks outside Seville; who when he did, joining Manchester City, came home for a season or two and is still going seven years on.
They were in the 24th minute when the ball tore into the net, and they didn’t stop until they had played 104 of them, but it was the only goal of the game. By the time the final whistle went, Navas had been sitting on the bench for half an hour, icepack held to his side. He had departed to a standing ovation, supporters bowing before one of their own, the best they have ever had. At the end, when they stood for him again, all choked up, he covered his face and sobbed into his shirt. He also did something that was very Navas: he stepped aside and pointed to his teammates instead.
All of which might sound a bit much for a week five winner in a 1-0 win against Getafe, but it wasn’t just that; it was everything. The pain, the release, the end; a nostalgia for the past and a fear for the future, duty hanging heavy. This was Navas’s first start of the season and his first goal since February 2019; it was also, in all probability, his last. His final game will be on 22 December. At the Santiago Bernabéu, a shy silent man who won it all will finally bid farewell, 21 years later. At most, he has only six more games at the Sánchez Pizjuán, his home; it won’t feel right, but he can’t go on like this, even when he has gone on like this.
Navas made his debut having just turned 19 and played 393 times for Sevilla, winning the Uefa Cup in 2006, their first trophy in 60 years. Another Uefa Cup and two Copa del Reys followed. He won the Euros and the World Cup with Spain, the only Sevilla player there. He returned from City in 2017 aged 32, supposedly near the finish – Pep Guardiola later admitted he let him go too soon – and won two more Europa Leagues. In 2020, his deliveries defeated Manchester United. In 2023, his cross led to the goal in the final against Roma. As captain, that night he lifted the trophy he had won four times; the first had been 17 years earlier.
After two years absent, he returned to the Spain team in 2023. He won the Nations League and Euro 2024, the last of that generation still playing with this one. Gareth Southgate’s final game as a player was against Navas; his last as England coach was, too. The night before the final in Berlin, Navas said it would be his final game for Spain and said is the word: there was no announcement, no noise, it just kind of slipped out. It was time, and what a way to go. “I’ve been in pain for four years,” he admitted. Now he is going from Sevilla too, playing on until the winter and then walking away while he still can. He has played more games and won more trophies there than anyone, ever.
Last week, Saúl Ñíguez was asked about the club’s captain. “I said to him the other day: what need is there to train during the international break when your hip hurts so much?” he told El País. “I tell him: rest this week. If you don’t train, fine. There are days when he can’t even walk, but we need him. His values are incredible.” Under Pimienta he has returned to his roots, back on the wing, that full-back position forgotten, albeit in an auxiliary role, at 38. “I try to put up with the pain, contributing what I can,” Navas said.
This was some contribution. The winning goal, likely the last he will ever score, and not just any goal either: a smashing shot that secured Sevilla’s first victory of the season, pulling them out of the relegation zone. Their first win, in fact, since April. They had needed this, the crisis threatening to engulf them all at a club torn apart, where supporters are demanding the departure of the board, where there is a bitter legal battle over ownership and where the opposition, led by José María del Nido is mobilising against the president José María del Nido. And, yes they are related, Del Nido senior calling his son a “shit” at the AGM, spitting: “don’t you dare question my Sevillista credentials; I paid for your season ticket for 30 years.”
A club where they decided winning the Europa League wasn’t enough, sacked José Luis Mendilibar and instead handed the job to Diego Alonso, a man with no European experience whom they fired two months later having not won a league game. Where QuiqueSánchez Flores, the coach who pulled them clear with the help of a kid from the youth system, said he was too “burnt out” by what he called a period of “pain and anguish” to continue. And where they are now on their fifth coach since Julen Lopetegui left, and Pimienta, a radical shift in style, is already under pressure.
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Real Betis 2-0 Leganés, Real Sociedad 0-2 Real Madrid, Sevilla 1-0 Getafe, Espanyol 3-2 Alavés, Real Mallorca 1-2 Villarreal, Atlético 3-0 Valencia, Las Palmas 2-3 Athletic Bilbao, Girona 1-4 Barcelona, Celta Vigo 3-1 Real Valladolid
Where of the starting XI from that Europa League final a little over one year ago only three are left and the captain against Girona was Marcão, playing his 13th league game there. The club who, out of Europe, a €70m hole blown in their budget, saw 14 players depart this summer, including Youssef En Nesyri, their top scorer; Yassine Bono, the goalkeeper, and Lucas Ocampos, who started more games than anyone. The club that last week had their official salary limit set at €2.49m, and that’s not a typo: it really is three hundred and three times smaller than Real Madrid’s. The club where slipping worryingly close to the relegation zone is not so new any more, the fear growing that being one place off the bottom so early in the season might not just be a quirk of the fixture list.
“I know what the fans are suffering; those of us from here feel it: it’s hard,” Navas said. He had initially said that he was going to retire as last season came to a close in May, a decision he had reached after being met by silence from the club – “there has been no call, none”, he said – only for Sevilla’s president Del Nido Jr, ashamed, to scramble and offer him a lifetime deal. Navas agreed to continue, his salary handed over to Sevilla’s charitable foundation, until December. Every day hurts, and like this even more so, but there was a duty too, to leave them well.
There was also now an end, announced in advance. Some cling still to the faint possibility that he could change his mind – “I hope we can convince him not to retire,” the coach said on Saturday – but most hold on to his final matches, all too aware that soon there will be none, this weekend’s explosion serving as a reminder of better times, of what they were and what they’re supposed to be. Of what it costs too.
“Everyone here knows my situation,” Navas said. “Two days ago, I couldn’t walk. The manager knew and we were worried. I always have the pain but I take it because this is my Sevilla and that eclipses everything else. I hit the shot with fury, for all of Sevilla. We deserved this. We have worked hard but without fortune. I have spent four years with this situation and every two or three days, I get a fright. But I keep going thinking that maybe I can make the fans happy for one more day.”