Highlights

  • Real Madrid and Real Sociedad played a six-minute match after a bomb threat interrupted the original game.
  • The bomb threat turned out to be a false alarm, leaving everyone involved shaken but unharmed.
  • Real Madrid managed to score a penalty during the six minutes and won the game 2-1, but ultimately lost the league title to Barcelona.

Back in January 2005, something unprecedented occurred in La Liga. Real Madrid took on Real Sociedad at the Bernabeu in a game which was just six minutes long. That’s right: it started in the 87th minute, while an additional four minutes of injury time were added on.

This happened because the previous 86 minutes and 20 seconds had already been played several weeks earlier. In an evenly-fought match, the two Spanish teams were level in the original game - with Ronaldo scoring for Real Madrid and Nihau Kahveci netting for the visitors - before the game was ground to a halt and the stadium was evacuated following a serious threat.

Game was suspended following bomb threat

It ended up being a false alarm

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The game was suspended with less than five minutes of the 90 remaining after someone, who claimed to speak in the name of the Basque separatist group ETA, told the newspaper ‘Gara’ that a bomb would explode at the stadium at 9pm. Kick-off was at 7pm and by this point in the match it was around 8:45pm.

Referee Vicente José Lizondo Cortés ordered the players to leave the pitch immediately, while 70,000 fans were instructed to exit the stadium in an orderly and calm fashion. Fortunately, the bomb scare proved to be a false alarm and nobody was hurt. But the incident left everybody involved seriously shaken up. Former Madrid star Ivan Helguera, who was involved in the game, spoke to reporters about the ordeal.

"We were scared to death. It's a shame that sports and politics get mixed up."

Rather than end the game at 1-1, it was agreed that the final six minutes would be continued on January 5, 2005. This led to the bizarre spectacle of thousands of fans turning up to the Bernabeu to watch less than 10 minutes of football. But the club's loyal supporters did just that and were rewarded with Los Blancos somehow finding time to score a winner during that final six minutes.

Real Madrid eventually won the game 2-1

Six minutes was enough time for them to win a penaltyMixCollage-30-Dec-2023-09-37-AM-7799

Real Madrid even had a new head coach by this point. Wanderley Luxemburgo, taking charge of his first match in extremely unusual circumstances, had replaced Mariano Garcia Remon days earlier. The Madrid players, however, were determined to secure all three points from the final minutes - and, remarkably, they did just that.

A couple of minutes after kick-off, Ronaldo won a penalty after being tripped inside the box. Zinedine Zidane then stepped up to take the spot-kick and confidently dispatched the ball into the back of the net. The Frenchman and his teammates celebrated wildly, as did the fans inside the stadium. Watch the 'six-minute match' here...

The full-time whistle was blown minutes later and the players and supporters were all overjoyed after sealing the win in probably the most bizarre game they ever witnessed. Despite sealing all three points from that fixture, though, Madrid lost out to Barcelona by four points in the race for the 2004-05 La Liga title.