First there was applause and then they started singing, the sound coming from the narrow street outside. In the bars and terraces where Real Oviedo’s fans were still picking over the game – in La Patatina, La Pepica, La Competencia and the rest – some put down their drinks and came to see what was going on. Somewhere among all the people filling Calle Juan Ramón Jiménez, a short walk from the Carlos Tartiere stadium, was a 5ft 5in footballer trying to make his way home, which was going to take a while. Santi Cazorla signed autographs, took pictures and shook a hundred hands, going from the crowds of kids to the little old lady as his son Enzo, who can play a bit too, kicked a Coke bottle across the square it opens on to.

On Plaza Pedro Miñor they have seen him many a day but this wasn’t any day and they couldn’t love him more. The son of an ambulance driver from Fonciello, 15 minutes away, Cazorla is something like their son too: an Oviedo fan who joined at eight and finally made his debut 32 years later. Forced to leave at 18, door closing just as it might have opened and his club collapsing into crisis, twice on the verge of disappearing entirely, he returned a man two decades on. He came on the minimum wage – “I would play for free but you’re not allowed,” he said – and helped take Oviedo back to the first division a quarter of a century later, a lifetime since the last time. Then this Saturday, at 41, he led them to the World Cup.

That’s what his coach, Guillermo Almada, had said anyway. These days, it seems every match you must win, every big game, gets classed as a “final”, even literal quarter- and semi-finals, and this was one was huge. So huge that the striker Fede Viñas revealed “the manager told us it’s the World Cup final,” and they had only gone and won it. Now, a 1-0 victory over Girona would surely go down as the worst World Cup final there’s ever been – apart from 1990 – and it certainly didn’t end with Oviedo parading 13lbs of 18-karat gold round the pitch but at least on Saturday afternoon they could stay out there a bit rather than just trudging back beaten again, reacquainted with a forgotten feeling and given something good: hope.

Not much, it’s true, but some where there was none. All is not well in Oviedo. Promoted in June, they sacked Veljko Paunovic, the manager who brought them back. It was early October and few could understand it, the owner asked why when they weren’t in the bottom three having already had to face Villarreal, Real Madrid and Barcelona. “Talk to me about us fighting for European qualification; don’t talk to me about being out of the relegation zone on goal difference,” Jesús Martínez replied but by the following week, they were in it. They never came out again.

Nor was it just the scores, it was the symbolism, the sense of something lost. A hero had been sacked; in his place came a villain, many felt. The new coach was the old coach, Oviedo recalling the man who had walked out on them after losing the second division playoff final in 2024. Whistled on his opening night, Luis Carrión came on a mission to make amends but knew he had to win almost every game. Instead, he didn’t win any and, with the situation unsustainable, he was sacked before boarding the flight back from a 4-0 loss in Seville. It wasn’t always awful – they had deserved more in three consecutive 0-0 draws – but he had collected four points in seven games, scoring in only one of them. The damage had been done, and for nothing.

It had taken 24 years to get back to the primera and a couple of months for the enthusiasm and good will to slip away. Relegation was always likely – accepted even, the first division an experience to be enjoyed however it ended – but this was something else, fault lines opening up socially. The season’s third manager, Almada came from second-division Real Valladolid, and started with another 0-0 draw, Oviedo’s fourth in a row at home, their seventh successive game without a goal. And although things got a little better – they scored against Alavés, Real Betis and Osasuna – little is the word. Three points from 15 under Almada, 7 of the last 42 overall, the longest winless run in the club’s history, left them bottom, safety slipping ever further away.

A nine-point gap made for an ultimatum already, the 22nd week feeling decisive. Just another Saturday afternoon at 2pm had turned into a World Cup final, a last chance to prevent the whole year being gone in January. With supporters’ clubs signing a collective statement censoring the club, a banner calling for resignations and chants against the board, a bit like the bad old days – which really were bad and not really like this – the final four months of the first top-flight season in a generation might become something to be endured. And in their centenary too. “The feeling was life or death,” David Costas said. “Either you grab it, hold on, or you fall into the well.”

So they held on. Just before 3.30pm a roar went round the Tartiere. Two men stood at the side of the pitch: Thiago Fernández who is 21 and Cazorla, twice his age. The former, signed on loan from Villarreal having recovered from a torn cruciate, was playing his first game in a year; under Almada, the latter has barely played. At 41 and less suited to the Uruguayan’s intense approach, that may seem logical enough. But even in games and moments seemingly made for him, those minutes when they needed control, Cazorla had sat out. Supporters wondered why, lamenting that their legend should go out like this.

Better to go like this: fighting, resisting, playing. Given eight minutes against Celta Vigo and none in the next three games, Cazorla got eight more in a biblical storm at the Camp Nou, introduced into the kind of hail that hurts your head and with his team already beaten. This time, unexpectedly, he was given 26. It was 0-0, Girona were the better side, and it took almost 10 minutes for him to get a touch. When he did, though, everything cleared. Javi López was released to find Thiago who provided for Ilyas Chaira to finish a wonderful move, the place erupting. It hadn’t been much – Cazorla got just 11 touches and completed all of his seven passes – but it was everything, “light at the end of the darkest tunnel,” in La Nueva España’s words: “this was relief … belief.”

“The magician led the way,” they said. “Cazorla gives them faith,” AS’s headline ran. “Santi’s smile is Oviedo’s smile,” went another. “This time Almada gave him proper time, something that didn’t just feel like a testimonial. Santi brought calm and football. Because that is what Oviedo lack: football. Give him the wheel. “In a team with so many technical limitations, call on Cazorla,” wrote Nacho Azparren. In El Comercio, Chisco García noted: “Giving up the greatest talent in your squad seems inconceivable, but that’s what was happening. Cazorla brought peace, quelling the Tartiere revolt.” And La Voz de Asturias agreed: “No one understands Oviedo, bottom and the worst team in primera, going months without using Cazorla, no one,” Pablo Fernández wrote. “Fans pray to his holiness Cazorla.”

Costas insisted: “Never doubt Santi. It’s Santi and 10 others. When you need the ball, it doesn’t ‘burn’ his feet.” Chaira added: “Give him the ball and he knows what to do.” Even the Girona manager, Míchel, said he was happy to see Cazorla: “His legs might not go as fast, but his brain does,” Michel said. As for Almada, he insisted that he had “never” doubted him. “What can I say about Santi?” Oviedo’s coach asked. “Santi is a crack. He brought us fluidity and confidence. I’ve surely made mistakes with my decisions lately; I have to bring out his football from now on. We had to win whether we were good, bad or indifferent. We hope this starts another path.”

Mostly, Oviedo hadn’t been very good, it is true. Mostly, they aren’t very good, but nor are they gone, not just yet, and they’re not giving up. They needed another astonishing late save from Aarón Escandell, they’re still bottom, six points adrift, and you can insert the so you’re telling me there’s a chancememe here: relegation remains a reality. But a first win since September let in a little hope at last, a little happiness however brief, something to bring them all together. At the full-time whistle, players collapsed on to the turf and supporters got to their feet. Fernández was in tears. Cazorla took him to the corner inviting him to lead the thunder claps with the fans, a ritual recovered, a community too. And then he set off home, out the north end of the ground and past the plaza where this time the people, his people, were enjoying their Saturday afternoon out.