Santi Cazorla Scores at 40 as Oviedo Seal Promotion

Twenty years after departing Oviedo’s academy, Santi Cazorla returned to drag his boyhood club back into Spain’s top flight — this time as a veteran leader.

At 40, the former Arsenal and Spain midfielder converted a crucial penalty in the second leg of the La Liga 2 play-off final, sparking Real Oviedo’s comeback against CD Mirandes. Two goals behind on aggregate, Cazorla’s calm strike just before the interval laid the foundation.

Ilyas Chaira drew Oviedo level after the break, before Francisco Portillo netted the decisive goal in extra time. The 3-2 aggregate triumph ends a 24-year exile from La Liga.

Cazorla had also notched the match-winner in the previous round, curling home a free-kick against Almeria to seal a 3-2 semi-final success.

His return to Oviedo in 2023 was more than symbolic. The midfielder originally left in 2003 due to financial collapse that crippled the club’s youth setup and demoted the senior side to Spain’s third tier.

When the club faced potential ruin again in 2012, Cazorla joined supporters in buying shares to help salvage the institution.

Capped 81 times by Spain and twice a European champion, Cazorla enjoyed six years at Arsenal, making 180 appearances before exiting in 2018. An Achilles injury in 2016 nearly ended his career; 11 surgeries followed, with complications leading to gangrene and medics warning him he’d be lucky to walk again.

“A miracle,” said doctors at the time.

Now, years later, Cazorla has delivered another kind.