Sportsblog: A blessed madness. Depor daring to dream big once again

It felt right that some of our number from Portlaoise were at the Riazor on Sunday and will be again when the the club and the city celebrates Deportivo’s return to the light. My brother Kev would love that, all of it.

LOCAL HERO: Lucas Perez

They came in their thousands and they came early. Kick-off was still seven hours distant and the Calle San Juan, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, was even then a riot of colour and joy and expectation as the faithful sang their songs and drank their beers and dared to believe.

The giant tifo unfurled behind one of the goals at the Estadio Riazor later on Sunday read ‘Os tempos son chegados’. It’s a line from the Galician national anthem and it means ‘Our time has come’. Here, now, after so many years on a road to nowhere, was a corner ready to be turned. Deportivo La Coruna were poised to go up.