By Samuel A. June 22, 2025
40 year old Santi Carzola has helped his boyhood club, Real Oviedo, seal their return to La Liga after 24 years, following a 3-2 aggregate victory over Mirandés. Oviedo triumphed 3-1 at home in Saturday’s promotion playoff, overturning a first leg deficit with goals from Cazorla, Ilyas Chaira and Francisco Portillo. A packed Estadio Carlos Tartiere erupted as fans stormed the pitch at the final whistle.
He scored the decisive goal in the playoff semifinal against Almería from a free kick and has now completed the fairytale by firing his boyhood club back into the LaLiga. Cazorla scored from the penalty spot in the first half of the second leg after Joaquin Panichelli’s goal had given Mirandés a two goal lead in the two legged affair. Chair’s second half strike took the tie to extra time and two minutes before the break in the extra half an hour, Portillo hit the winner to send the home fans wild.
They will join Levante and Elche in next season’s top tier, replacing relegated Leganés, Las Palmas and Valladolid.
Oviedo’s coach, Veljko Paunovic, told La Liga TV: “There’s no way to describe what this means to us. These players are heroes, every single one of them. They deserve great recognition.” Cazorla was a product of Oviedo’s academy, but was forced to leave the club in 2003 when financial issues decimated the club’s youth system and saw the first team re-enter in the third tier.
When Oviedo faced another crisis a decade later, Cazorla was one of thousands of fans and former players who purchased shares in the club to keep it alive. The midfielder spent six years at Arsenal and made 180 appearances before leaving in 2018. He suffered an Achilles injury in October 2016, going on to have 11 operations to cure the problem, before moving to Villarreal, where he found his feet and played for a few years, then moved to his boyhood club, where he’s now a history maker.
