Bryan Zaragoza
Barcelona Osasuna

COLUMN: How Bryan Zaragoza stole the show on Madrid derby weekend

In the aftermath of the most explosive Madrid Derby in several years, both Atletico and Real Madrid inched a little closer to table-toppers Barcelona, taking advantage of the Catalans’ Saturday slip-up. The capital clubs might not have gotten as close as they would have liked after they split the points in a city derby that was briefly suspended due to fan misbehavior behind Thibaut Courtois’ goal, but they did get closer…thanks to the star of the weekend in La Liga.

That’s right, Osasuna’s Bryan Zaragoza stole the show on matchday eight with a scintillating first-half performance against Barca at El Sadar. Now back in Spanish football – maybe for good? – Zaragoza tortured the Blaugrana again, assisting Ante Budimir’s opening goal before scoring himself to extend the hosts’ lead, demonstrating the kind of technique and audacity that made Bayern Munchen want to sign him earlier this calendar year.

Zaragoza’s display helped Osasuna to a rollicking 4-2 win over the previously perfect visitors – who still maintain a three-point edge on Real Madrid and a five-point advantage over Atletico (not to mention a four-point lead over Villarreal in third). After a difficult few months abroad, it is Bryan who has returned to Spain and delivered the first “blow” in what is expected to be a three-team race for the title in 2024/25.

The first goal at El Sadar on Saturday night came as Osasuna expanded the pitch and punished a narrower Barcelona on the counterattack. Zaragoza made an overlapping run to the left of Osasuna’s #10 Aimar Oroz, then received the ball, cut to the outside of Jules Kounde, and plastered a cross right on to the head of Ante Budimir – one of La Liga’s most underrated target men this decade – to open the scoring.

That was Bryan’s first goal involvement for four weeks, and only his second since returning to Spain this summer, on loan from Bayern Munich. It seemed like a move straight out of Football Manager: Bayern signed Bryan from Granada in a €15m transfer, and paid a small premium on top of that to bring him in January rather than the summer. However, it didn’t quite go according to plan – the Malaga native struggled to adapt to life in Bavaria, and he wasn’t a signing that manager Thomas Tuchel coveted. As such, he made only seven appearances in the Bundesliga, starting once and playing just 183 minutes after starring for Granada – which needed the money as badly as it needed la permanencia.

Even with Tuchel since dismissed, Bryan was not in contention for minutes under Bayern’s new boss Vincent Kompany and had suitors waiting for him back in Spain. Girona and Valencia wanted to sign him; Los Che were supposedly close to sealing a deal in the first week of August. But Osasuna won the race in the end, paying just a €250k loan fee to give incoming manager Vicente Moreno a new winger and a true replacement for Ez Abde, who left two summers back.

Zaragoza’s scandalous assist for Budimir alone would have been a nice night’s contribution for most wingers. But Bryan had a goal up his sleeve, too – one of the best scored this season in La Liga, I reckon – and from that point on, there was only going to be one winner at El Sadar.

The move was innocuous at first – a ball lost in midfield, and a hopeful Pablo Ibanez pass forward into space vacated by Barca’s young center-back Sergi Dominguez. Bryan took off from the halfway line and shot like a cannonball into the space between Dominguez and Kounde, again unable to keep up with this 5’5’ winger.

Bryan then needed just three touches. The first, a little heavy in truth, to latch onto Ibanez’s pass roughly 40 yards from goal; the second, from around 12 yards with his right foot, to brutally fake out goalkeeper Inaki Pena, who made himself big but was penalised for his indecision; and then, with the net empty thanks to his dummy, the third, tucked in at the near post after Bryan had made it appear he was going to stick the ball off the far post instead.

It was a goal straight off the street, loaded with skill and guile, performed by a throwback winger joyfully rediscovering his mojo. Bayern reached out through an emissary to congratulate Zaragoza on his display; his future after this season remains unresolved, but the present is as bright as ever for a player who helps make the Spanish game what it is: a league that goes against the grain, a crackling hotbed of passion that overflowed (unacceptably) in El Derbi Madrileno, but made El Sadar dream on Saturday.

And as for Bryan? Well, to paraphrase a certain Keanu Reeves character, I’m thinking he’s back.

“These things are in me,” Bryan said on Saturday, per Sid Lowe in The Guardian. “You don’t learn this, you have it. And I have it.”

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