Jorge Molina lets the joy in at last for Granada’s La Liga survival fight

“This was life or death,” Jorge Molina said and he had chosen life again, clinging on to primera, his place. It had taken him until he was 29 to reach the first division, finally making it around about the time a career in the lower leagues should have started winding down, eight seasons, five teams, three tiers, more than 250 games and a hundred goals after he had begun in Benidorm. Twice it had been taken away from him, twice he returned, fighting back when he was supposed to be finished, and there was no way he was going to let it be three. Which is why come Saturday afternoon he was standing there in the sunshine smiling a little shyly and up in one corner of the stands they were celebrating.

Granada are not safe yet, but the tension was released for a few hours at least, something very significant secured beyond the three points they had so badly needed after five months in which they won only once in the league. “We like seeing them happy,” the coach Aitor Karanka said at the end of Saturday’s vital victory over Real Mallorca lifted his team out of the relegation zone for the first time since he took over three unbeaten weeks ago. “When I came in, all I saw were anxious, nervous faces,” he said. “The weight taken from our shoulders is brutal. If today was a final, we would be champions.”

They felt like it, joy let in at last. Mallorca and Granada were on edge, two of the five teams for whom the threat of relegation was a reality. Outside Granada’s training ground, fans had waited with fireworks as they set off to the airport on Friday; outside Son Moix the following afternoon, Mallorca’s fans did the same.

The day had started with Alavés on 28 points, Levante on 29, Granada 31, Cadiz 32 and Mallorca 32. Cadiz were