The most romantic line ever written was sprayed on a dirty old wall somewhere in Italy and repeated everywhere else. You’re as beautiful as a goal in the 90th minute, the graffiti goes, and this was as beautiful as it gets until it got better. The board had gone up at the Ciutat de Valencia stadium on Friday night when Elche embarked upon a move that could have come from a cartoon or a console, the final scene in a film. Escape to Victory only more so, it started the way Michael Caine planned it, all arrows and crosses and ping-ping-ping, and finished the way Pelé actually played it: a picture of perfection which earned them a 2-2 draw in the derby at Levante. Or so it goes.

From one end to the other Elche had gone, the edge of their area to the heart of Levante’s. There had been a dribble out, a dozen passes, a touch for all of them. A superb assist, three defenders sent the wrong way. And then, two minutes into added time, the finish, Adam Boayar’s astonishing overhead kick sailing into the corner to complete a goal so good it was silly, so pristine as to be almost surreal. As the Ciutat fell silent, teammates piled on and fans in the away corner didn’t so much celebrate as put their hands over their mouths and try not to laugh, barely able to believe this.

Just you wait. Because if this was the best goal of the season, it wasn’t the best moment of the night, let alone the weekend. Because if there’s one thing more beautiful than a goal in the 92nd minute it is a goal in the 96th, however ugly it actually is, and Levante’s fans hardly had time to turn and head for the exits before they were turning back again.

“That’s what makes this sport so wonderful … and so cruel,” former Levante coach Luis García had said when Boayar scored, the home side seemingly denied a victory they had deserved almost as much as they needed it, but still refusing to declare this definitive. “Look, look, look, look ... see?!” he said when a long throw, a corner and a header from Alan Matturro saw them take it back again.

Now, 3-2 up, everyone exploded. Suddenly there were people running everywhere, nowhere to go except wild. Some went left, some right. They came from the bench to the pitch and the pitch to the bench. On the touchline, coach Luis Castro flew up the line, arms out like a little boy being an airplane. Piles of players appeared all over the place. Maty Ryan arrived from his goal to leap on board. Somewhere in the chaos, someone appeared on crutches. People tumbled down terraces. Matturro, who had been criticised last week for sidling up to Kylian Mbappé before he took a penalty against them at the Bernabéu and joking “[Ryan] thinks he’s Dibu”, now looked at the camera and drew a heart.

They had done it, at last. Having gone down an early goal, at half-time the manager had told Levante’s players that if they kept playing like this they would win but that promise was about to be broken by a goal of implausible perfection and from nowhere. They had 26 shots to three and nine corners to one. Their best chance had been cleared off the line accidentally and by their own player, poor Karl Etta Eyong, the striker who has not scored since October, almost wiped out by the ball getting whacked straight at him. And they had gone into added time 2-1 up, this close to winning their first home game of the season. “And then,” said Pablo Martínez, “they go and score an overhead kick on 90-something.” That could have finished them, fatalism flooding in; instead, they found a way back.

“I’m glad it was Matturro: it hasn’t been an easy week for him,” Castro said. “What I liked most is that after the 2-2, the players didn’t give in; they believed so much that they managed to get the win. There was a lot of emotion. We had to stay calm but with the goal, the emotion was let out.”

Hope, above all. Victory took Levante within three points of safety, with a game in hand. Which doesn’t sound like much, but something has shifted. When in November Levante sacked Julián Calero, the policeman on leave who was the first on the scene at the Atocha train bombings, they were 19th, level with Real Oviedo. A newly-promoted team, mostly they had competed but the results were poor: on nine points from 14 games, they were three off Girona, Osasuna and safety, four from Mallorca and five from Valencia. Under Del Moral and Iborra, the interim coaches, it didn’t get better: a defeat against Osasuna and a late draw at Real Sociedad saw them six points from safety. Within an hour of the final whistle that night, the new appointment was announced.

Few had heard of Castro. “I started at the bottom coaching five-year-olds,” he said, “and I have built a nice story; I come from the people. My life and personality are similar to Levante’s: there have been difficult moments, they’ve had to fight against the tide, but with togetherness have achieved things.” He said he had studied Levante’s history and knew about them, a team that have been to Europe but never finished above rivals Valencia and had to wait 86 years for their one cup success – in the Republican zone during the civil war – to be recognised. They knew a little less about the coach who had won the Uefa Youth League with Benfica’s U19s, and had overachieved in France, saving Dunkerque. But, he promised they were going to attack, and so they did.

The first day they beat Sevilla 3-0. “We always went for more,” the coach said. Then came a draw against Espanyol, a 2-0 loss at Real Madrid, and now this. Two wins and a draw in four; as many victories as in the previous 16 games put together. “These three points literally give you life,” one report had it. Two points away with a game in hand, safety was within touching distance.

But hope lasts only as long as others let it, and beauty was everywhere. If Levante went from 14 points to 17, 3km south the following afternoon it happened again: same scenes, same explosion of joy, same hope returning. Same “cinema ending” according to the city’s sports paper, Super Deporte. Same fatalism suddenly blown away. Same resistance, same satisfaction from the coach too: “We didn’t give in at 2-2,” Carlos Corberán said. One-nil up and 2-1 up, Valencia had seen Espanyol equalise with 11 minutes to go. Yet they too found a way back, or rather were gifted one.

It came thanks to what have come to be called penaltitos or little penalties, which would be fine, only it makes it sound like they are penalties at all. On 91.42, Lucas Beltrán ran into Ruben Suárez, injuring the defender, and getting a spot kick for it. “I don’t know if they went to the VAR; maybe they went to the bar in the north stand or in the south stand; I don’t know what the VAR is for,” Espanyol’s coach Manolo González said. And while he admitted that if you complain when you’ve lost it seems like it’s because you lost, he wasn’t wrong. Largie Ramazani, who had come on with five minutes to go, didn’t care, rolling in on 93.49 and running off to back flip in front of the fans.

This was Valencia’s latest winning goal this century. It was also their second win a row after a run of one in 14. Last week it came on 84; now it was 10 minutes later. Seven of their last 10 games have seen them get winners or (mostly equalisers) in the last 11 minutes. “This is the kind of [win that] gives you your breath back, taking the team out of this permanent state of doubt,” Super Deporte insisted. “Sometimes salvation starts with a game like this. It’s not the end of the road but it could be the beginning.”

Only they, like Levante, were not alone. In the game before, Osasuna scored via an own goal on 90.44 (and again on 93.41) to beat Rayo 3-1; last week they had defeated Oviedo on 93. If survival is about the games against direct rivals, just as Roger Federer noted that he only won 54% of his points, then they are choosing well, scoring decisive goals after 90 minutes against Rayo, Oviedo, Mallorca and Getafe. Breathing room earned, it still isn’t done, their coach warned. “If we get cocky, you’ll take a hit: we’ve been there and it’s very hard,” Alesio Lisci said.

That goes for just about everyone, half the league still not safe. This was a weekend which started with Levante moving within touching distance of safety, only for safety to take a step away again; in which Sevilla beat Athletic to go alongside a 90th-minute equaliser last Monday; and in which Alavés slipped into the bottom three only to climb out again by beating Betis. One in which three different teams occupied the final relegation place and which has left four points between the 10 teams from Osasuna in ninth and the relegation zone. Three points, a single win, separates Elche in 10th and the drop, setting up a season that promises to run to the last, most beautiful minute of the final week.