Marcos Fernández saves Espanyol with 97th-minute header against 10-man Sevilla

Marcos Fernández had barely been on the field a few minutes when he was called on to be the hero: in the 97th minute, deep into an endless stoppage time, he headed home to make it 1-1 in the end between Espanyol and Sevilla at the RCDE Stadium. The goal came after a VAR review and with Espanyol having played a man up for some time, but the match had already twisted and turned several times before that final blow.

The LaLiga clash offered little to look at in the first half: fouls, an offside or two and not much else. Neither Espanyol nor Sevilla managed to seriously trouble the opposing goalkeeper before the break, which arrived with the score still blank.

The red card that changed the script

The second half really got going in the 55th minute, when Arouna Sangante was sent off with a straight red card, leaving Sevilla down to 10 men. With the extra man, Espanyol grew bolder and thought they had scored six minutes later when Omar El Hilali put the ball in the net, but VAR chalked it off for offside and the score stayed at 0-0.

Sevilla, though, did not simply try to hold on with a man down. In the 84th minute, Lucas Stassin popped up in the middle of the box and finished with his right foot to make it 0-1, a tough blow for an Espanyol side that had controlled much of the second half. Trailing at home, the Catalan club threw everyone forward in an added time period that turned out to be extremely long: the fourth official signaled 9 minutes of stoppage time. In that endless added time came the reward: Marcos Fernández, who had come on from the bench, first hit the crossbar and then, on the next play, in the 97th minute, headed in the equalizer that held up until the final whistle.

The numbers behind the match

Espanyol was the more insistent side in terms of play: they dominated possession and created more clear-cut chances, something also reflected in our post-match expected goals figures, with 2.209 xG for the home side against just 0.511 for Sevilla. That gap tells the story of a team that attacked far more but finished poorly, and late, for nearly the entire match.

Before kickoff, our projection gave Espanyol a 41% chance of winning, 30% for a draw and 29% in favor of Sevilla, with combined expected goals of 2.54. The final result, a draw, matches the second most likely scenario in our model, though the road to get there was far more chaotic than any number could have predicted: a red card, a disallowed goal, a visitor's lead and a stoppage-time equalizer in the dying seconds.

What the result leaves behind

With this point, Sevilla moves to 7 points in LaLiga, with a record of 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss in four matches played. Espanyol, for its part, sits on 4 points, coming from 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses. The gap between the two sides in the table stands at 3 points, which after just four rounds still says little about the real level of either squad, but is starting to shape positions early in a season where Espanyol needs points however it can get them, even from a goal born in the final gasp of the match.