Ian Mackay’s Black Day

He didn’t deserve it. No one feels Dépor more than him and no player in blue and white has performed better than him in the last two years. But Ian Mackay Abad (A Coruña, 1986) experienced the worst day of his long career in Castalia. The goalkeeper from A Coruña missed the first two goals of Orelluto and led to a penalty due to which his teammates, in numerical inferiority, had to play a long overtime. Too many gifts in a tie solved with details.

Mackay has felt the blue and white since childhood. He forged his passion for football on the streets of O Ventorrillo until he joined the team he loved as a youth. The door was slammed on him and he renewed himself in the diaspora, making other hobbies happy. He was the promotion hero in Segundo with Ponferradine and Sabadell, and retired from professional football when he saw an opportunity to return home. He wanted to succeed at his club.

In the last two seasons, Ian has kept 34 clean sheets. Record of the first federation. Nobody got those numbers. This season he had 17 of them (in 47% of games); but he failed when it hurt the most. In the second leg of the semi-finals of the playoffs, he had to return his Deportivo to the second division, from which he should never have left.

It’s true that Mackay wasn’t bad at footy. He made it easy for the blue-white team to get the ball out with perfectly timed long passes to the feet of his teammates. But he was wrong about what was perhaps the easiest. In the 23rd minute, he was overconfident and confused about which side he had to go to, due to the great pressure of his opponents. Instead of opening to the right, according to Antoñito, he insisted on a combination to the left with Jaime. De Miguel took advantage of the gift and scored for 1-0, thus neutralizing Riazor’s advantage. Just seven minutes later, in the 30th minute, a long ball caused another tragedy. Jaime Sánchez failed on the rebound as he did not clear the lob and De León took advantage of the fact that Mackay was on the halfway line to score the second goal that set the team up for the feat.

Dépor reacted to those two shots. Mackay deserved it. If those two mistakes were not decisive in the end. It was the most honest. The goalkeeper from A Coruña brought out the second football, cooling down in the rhythm of Castellón with time losses not seen in A Coruña for a long time (and often missed).

After 3-2, Dépor’s third unfortunate goal arrived. In an attempt to run away with the ball, and angry that his opponents were interfering with his service, he took a shot that ended in a penalty and exclusion. Although Pablo Hernández missed from eleven meters, playing the entire overtime in numerical inferiority was too much of a brake. He doesn’t deserve it. But Mackay’s worst day was too much punishment for Dépor.