In the 55th minute, with the game drifting towards a nervous extra time, the match found its man. A cross into the box, a poor clearance, a loose rebound — and there, amid legs and hesitation, Jaume Tovar appeared. It was not a beautiful goal, but it was the right one: a striker’s finish, guided by instinct rather than elegance. The Atlético Baleares forward poked the ball home and the Estadi Balear erupted. The island side were knocking RCD Espanyol, a LaLiga club, out of the Copa del Rey and booking a place in the last 32.
More than 3,000 supporters celebrated what only this competition reliably offers: the brief, intoxicating feeling that hierarchy has been suspended, and the impossible might just be happening.
The run would end weeks later. Atlético de Madrid, one of Europe’s elite, needed to draw on all its experience and authority to edge past Baleares 2–3 and reach the last 16. It was not a comfortable night for Diego Simeone’s team. Nor was it for Tovar, who missed an early penalty that could have changed the game’s direction. Still, the stadium found its voice. A banner in the stands captured the mood perfectly: “Neither Morata nor Abdón — Tovar for the national team.”Exaggerated, yes — but telling. The striker from Sóller had earned his moment.
Tovar is 27, stands 1.91 metres tall and comes from a valley where sport has long been a form of belonging. His nickname, El Pistolero, speaks not of speed but of accuracy. A classic penalty-box striker, he can also drift wide, link play and pull defenders out of shape. He reads the game with an unusual calm for a traditional centre-forward, one developed at RCD Mallorca, a former captain of their reserve side, and a player seasoned in promotion battles where muscle matters as much as talent. In July 2024, he signed for Atlético Baleares on a deal running to 2026.
He is now the face of a team that allowed itself to dream. Leading the Segunda RFEF scoring charts with ten goals in twelve matches, involved in more than half of Baleares’ goals and almost ever-present in the starting eleven, Tovar’s importance is obvious. But against Espanyol, it was not the numbers that lingered — it was the image.
The goal itself was scrappy. A survival goal. The ball fell loose and Tovar reacted faster than anyone else. “It’s been a perfect night,” he said afterwards. “Scoring is special, but what really matters is that the team went through.” There was no grand rhetoric, just the satisfaction of having delivered when it mattered.
Then came Atlético de Madrid. Big names, big expectations — and a performance from Baleares that made defeat feel earned rather than inevitable. Gerardo Bonet and Moha Keita scored for the hosts. Antoine Griezmann’s quality and a series of decisive saves from the Atlético goalkeeper ultimately swung the tie. Even an early 0–2 deficit did not flatten the contest. Baleares pushed, pressed and refused to disappear quietly.
“For us, playing a match like this is a privilege,” Tovar said afterwards. “A Champions League team — one of the elite competitions in European football — comes to our stadium, full of world-class players. We can’t complain.” No excuses, no bitterness — just the sense of having measured themselves honestly.
Atlético Baleares have always lived slightly against the grain. Historically the island’s rebel club, born from popular football culture rather than establishment roots, their identity has been shaped by resistance more than trophies. Their history is one of intermediate divisions, near misses and loyalty that does not depend on success. The Estadi Balear itself was closed in 2013 due to structural problems, leaving the club homeless and its material history — trophies, photographs, documents — abandoned and slowly forgotten.
In 2014, with the club in administration, German businessman Ingo Volckmann took control, stabilised its finances and rebuilt from the ground up. Baleares have since moved forward patiently, coming close to promotion last season before falling in a brutal play-off. Progress here is rarely linear.
That background matters, because it frames why this Copa run resonated so deeply. And why it connected so naturally to Tovar’s own story, which begins in Sóller — a valley where football has been played for more than a century, where Camp d’en Maiol remains one of Mallorca’s oldest surviving pitches. There, football is not spectacle but inheritance. From that enclosed landscape emerged a striker who, for ninety minutes, unsettled one of Europe’s most powerful teams.
The Copa del Rey exists for moments like these. A competition designed to disrupt the order of things, where lower-league sides occasionally overturn giants and belief briefly outweighs budgets. Baleares’ run fits neatly into that tradition. Tovar assisted against Nàstic, scored the winner against Espanyol and remained central even in defeat to Atlético. In 35 matches for the club, he has 13 goals and three assists. Always progressing, always from below.
Football rarely follows clean trajectories. Tovar’s is not the story of a predestined star, but of persistence — of learning, waiting, and seizing the moment when it finally arrives. The Cup is over, but it has erased nothing. The missed penalty, the banner, the final applause all belong to the same narrative.
Atlético Baleares are out. The story is not. And in that story, the name Jaume Tovar no longer belongs only to Sóller. It now sits comfortably in the memory of a Copa del Rey that, once again, asked us to believe.
