Athletic Club visits the Ciutat de València this Wednesday, and the Palco revisits a shared history between two centenary clubs. This time, the exhibition travels back to the 1946-1947 season to recall one of the most intense Copa del Rey matchups featuring Levante against the then Atlético de Bilbao.

A memorable matchup

The clash against Atlético de Bilbao, now Athletic Club, in the Copa del Generalísimo of that season rests in the Levante collective memory. The most devoted fans, those imbued with the wisdom that comes with experience, sought to preserve a memory that shines brightly.

The round of 16 matchup pitted two teams against each other, separated by their trajectories and the historical weight of their respective entities, but united during those days by a football battle that stretched over two matches.

The first chapter was written in San Mamés. Salvador and Botella silenced the red-and-white coliseum in the prelude to the Copa clash with two goals that unsettled the king of cups. Barely twenty minutes had passed, and Levante had managed to challenge all predictions.

Atlético reacted and ultimately imposed their dominance in a match that ended with a 6-2 victory for the Bilbao side. However, the blue-and-reds left the field feeling that the result did not do justice to their efforts.

The record of an unforgettable afternoon

The outcome of the matchup was reserved for Vallejo. There, the team led by Villagrá delivered one of their most memorable performances of that season. The record, a kind of perpetual evocation of the duel, reveals everything experienced on an afternoon when Levante rode on the back of a runaway horse.

Escrivá, twice, Martínez Catalá, and Botella made the fans dream. Levante managed to push Atlético to the brink and came close to overturning a seemingly insurmountable deficit.

“It was undoubtedly the best match ever played on our field,” wrote an employee of the club who wanted to preserve the memory of that second-leg clash forever. The note accompanying the record also reads: “We eliminated Atlético, even though the overall result favors them.”

The same note reflects dissatisfaction with the referee's performance: “Munguía's refereeing was poor, as he did not clearly show his intentions, which prevented us from overcoming the Bilbao deficit.”

Vallejo dressed in its finest for the Copa

The press of the time also captured the magnitude of that Levante performance. “The Valencians played the best match of the season and overwhelmed the Bilbao eleven,” wrote El Mundo Deportivo, reporting on the battle fought at the Vallejo field.

That Levante team had returned to the Second Division and faced one of the great historical teams of Spanish football in a matchup that ended up becoming one of the most intense chapters of their Copa history.

The memory of the match in the Palco

The original record of the second-leg match will be the centerpiece of an exhibition that will allow visitors to revisit that 1947 Levante-Athletic clash through documents preserved by the club.

The exhibition is completed with photographs of the duel, lineups of that Levante team, two Vallejo passes contemporary to the matchup, and a ticket from the iconic field, material witnesses of an era when Levante football began to build some of the pages that now form part of its memory.

More than seven decades later, Athletic Club and Levante meet again at the Ciutat de València in the First Division. The setting is obviously no longer Vallejo, but the documents on display will refresh a vibrant chapter in the history of both clubs.