Hontoria hammers home hat-trick as Huesca humble Eibar

Who says a defender cannot dance the flamenco of the forwards? At the Eibar Stadium on Sunday, Enrique Hontoria, a centre-back by trade and a Huesca man by blood, stepped into the bullring and planted three banderillas in the home side's heart. Huesca won 4-1, and the night belonged to the man who has spent a decade in the same shirt.

Hontoria, 25, has scored 18 goals in 314 games for the club he joined as a boy in 2053. Nobody expected a hat-trick. But football is a romance, and on this night the romance was his. He took four shots, all four on target, and added seven interceptions for good measure. A rating of 9.7, the match ball, and the warm embrace of the travelling support.

The game was a scrap early. Armand Crusat, a 20-year-old starting on the right, was booked after 20 minutes, and Jonay and Ben Walker followed him into Javi Pozo's book before the break. Eibar's Marcos Montero and Carlos Rubio also saw yellow. But Huesca kept the ball, 56 per cent of it, and kept pressing. Iván Alejo, marauding from left-back, provided two assists and ran himself into the ground. Crusat scored one and created seven chances. Antonio Jesús Bernal, the summer arrival from Albacete, knitted it all together.

Eibar had their moments. Gorka Nieto, a 19-year-old striker, was a handful and set up Iñaki Goñi, who came on at 67 minutes and scored. But Huesca's 21 shots to Eibar's six told the tale. José had five efforts without reward, but Hontoria did not miss.

There was a touch of poetry in the Huesca ranks: Xabier Lillo, who spent nine seasons at Eibar before moving to Huesca, came on late. He did not score, but he smiled. Hontoria did the rest. A hat-trick from the back. A night for the small club with the big heart.