It took Athletic Club precisely two minutes to decide this contest and cast Celta Vigo into deeper trouble. Between the 20th and 22nd minutes at Balaidos, the visitors landed two clean, clinical blows and never looked back, wrapping up a 2-0 win that felt settled long before the interval. For the hosts, it was a third defeat in three home appraisals of a season that has yet to catch fire.

The pattern of the afternoon was set the moment Alex Berenguer swept his finish into the bottom corner. What followed was not a slow strangulation but a sudden, breathless burst of quality that Celta simply had no answer to. By the time the noise had drained from the stands, Athletic were two goals clear and playing with the calm assurance of a side that knew the hard work was done.

Celta remain marooned in 18th, with a single point from their opening three fixtures and the unwelcome arithmetic of one goal scored and four conceded. Athletic, meanwhile, climb the early table into 12th, their first victory of the campaign banked and their confidence restored after a stuttering start of their own.

Two minutes that mattered

The opening goal carried the fingerprints of Athletic's most dangerous partnership. Iñaki Williams, all menace and acceleration down the flank, found space on the left and picked out Berenguer arriving at the edge of the box. The finish was crisp and precise, a right-footed strike guided into the bottom right corner, giving the goalkeeper no realistic hope of intervention.

Celta had barely regathered their composure when the second arrived. Íñigo Ruiz de Galarreta threaded a through ball into the heart of the penalty area, splitting the home defence with a pass of real intelligence. Robert Navarro read it perfectly, took his moment in the centre of the box, and repeated Berenguer's trick almost exactly, rolling his shot into the same bottom right corner.

Two goals, two identical destinations, one shell-shocked home crowd. There was a ruthlessness to the sequence that spoke of a side finally clicking into gear. Athletic had not laboured for their lead; they had seized it with a pair of moves that were as sharp as anything seen at Balaidos this season.

Celta's mounting worries

For Celta Vigo, the concern is no longer creeping but pressing. Three matches into the La Liga season and the numbers make grim reading: a solitary draw, two defeats, and now a home reverse that leaves them 18th and inside the relegation places. A single point from a possible nine is not a start that can be dismissed as slow; it is one that demands a response.

The most alarming trend is at the wrong end of the pitch. Four goals conceded already, two of them in a two-minute collapse, points to a defensive fragility that opponents will note and target. When a team cannot keep its shape through a brief spell of pressure, leads become deficits with frightening speed, and Celta learned that lesson in the cruellest fashion.

Going forward, too, there is precious little to cling to. One goal scored across three games tells its own story of blunted attacking edge. Balaidos has long prided itself as a fortress of sorts, but there was no fight-back here, no late siege to lift the mood. The frustration in the stands by full time was as much about the flatness of the performance as the result.

Belief returns for Athletic

Athletic Club arrived carrying their own anxieties, two defeats from their first two matches and questions about where the goals would come from. The answer, on this evidence, is from everywhere. Berenguer's opener, Williams's creativity and Navarro's poacher's instinct all pointed to an attack that had been searching for exactly this kind of afternoon.

The scoreline could arguably have been more emphatic given the manner of those first-half goals, but there was wisdom in the control that followed. Rather than chase a rout, Athletic managed the game with maturity, protecting the two-goal cushion and denying Celta any foothold from which to build momentum. A clean sheet away from home is no small prize, and it will do wonders for a defence that had shipped five in its opening pair of fixtures.

Three points lift Athletic to 12th and, more importantly, break the cycle of early-season frustration. Momentum in the opening weeks can be deceptive, but a first win banked in this fashion, achieved with such swift authority, is the sort of result that steadies a dressing room and sends a side into the coming weeks believing the season has properly begun.

The road ahead

The table at this embryonic stage is a jumble of small samples and large emotions, but positions still carry weight in the minds of players and supporters. Athletic's leap into 12th on three points offers a platform; Celta's slide to 18th on one is a warning that cannot be ignored. The gap between the two clubs may be narrow in points, but in mood it feels considerable.

For Celta, the priority is obvious and urgent: find a goal, find a clean sheet, find a way to compete for ninety minutes rather than folding inside a fatal two. The talent to climb this table exists, but talent counts for little without resilience, and resilience is precisely what deserted them when Athletic turned the screw. The next fixture becomes a test of character as much as quality.

Athletic will travel with renewed conviction, aware that the ruthlessness shown here is the standard they must now meet. Berenguer and Navarro will take the headlines, Williams and Ruiz de Galarreta the quiet credit for the passes that unlocked it all. Two minutes decided this afternoon at Balaidos, and in those two minutes one side found its season and the other was left counting the cost.