Atlético de Madrid 2-Liverpool 3 | Glory and pain in the Wanda

It was a huge game. Unpredictable in the blows and in the turns. With reds, comebacks, penalties and all possible emotions concentrated in 90 minutes. Heroic and pain. In a Metropolitan turned into Vicente Calderón. The first shot was almost entangled by the referee’s opening whistle. Seven minutes had only passed when Salah ran after that ball to put his name on it. He tied it up and started on his way to the goal as if pointing a freshly loaded revolver at it.

He got rid of Carrasco, easy. Seated Lemar, too. It passed before Griezmann like a hurricane wind. As João Félix came up from behind to snatch the ball from him, he raised his head and looked at Oblak with his right boot on the trigger. His shot to the center was hit just enough by Milner to make it impossible for Oblak. 0-1. Liverpool’s dominance was already on the scoreboard. They jumped to the Metropolitan with rage, revenge, cauterizing a wound, that long and terrible hangover. They rained from the first moment like a biblical plague. Filling everything with pecks, blows, attacks red.

Cholo’s bet shattered as soon as it started. Because he started the game with Griezmann, João Félix’s partner. Without Suárez, without Correa, without Llorente, without Giménez. And a drama in defense. Kondogbia, third central, covered what he could, but he could not everything. Beside him Felipe has become a hole that lets all the bullets pass. Because the rojiblanco team had not replaced Salah’s wound when it was his turn to heal another blow. Keita again bored Oblak’s goal with a volley, five minutes later. Felipe in the photo. His poor clearance in the area had turned into assist.

But Atleti is a team that should never be considered dead. The trembling gesture with which he had presented himself would leave in the 20th minute. Another match began. The tragedy ended, the time of the heroic began. Another trident would fall on Klopp’s men: the one formed by Lemar, João Félix and Griezmann, shielded by huge Koke, Carrasco and De Paul. The comeback began on the board, in a rehearsed play. COrner short, Lemar who wins the baseline, Koke’s shoe from the front and, among a forest of men, one last flash: the spoils of It bites, with that unique ability to light up dark matches. Simeone knew well. That’s why he came back. His goal went through the VAR before going up to the scoreboard. He was not off-side. He could hear that Metropolitan who was whistling a month ago, just clap.

Liverpool did not get off the canvas. Mané and Salah disappeared, Firmino was just a shot missed. Henderson was shipwrecked, Van Dijk wandered humiliated, Arnold surpassed between so much physique and talent. The one that Lemar and João Félix spill on the grass when they meet, like each other and play. Undetectable the first, brilliant the second. He cooked the second for Atleti. He danced to Keita and, when three rivals rained on him, he leaked the ball to Griezmann. The Frenchman picked it up with precise targeting control and fired. Goal. If Liverpool did not go to rest with a bigger seam it was for Alisson, who ruined a hand in hand with Griezmann and the opportunity for Lemar with which rest came. Klopp would go to the booth chewing cholismo.

Red, penalty … and three points ‘red’

The game returned with two changes, Simeone propping up his defense (Giménez), Klopp his center of the field (Fabinho), and calls in both goals. Oblak’s stop to Van Dijk, Alisson’s stop to Carrasco. What this eleven-against-eleven second half could have been will never be known because in 50 ‘another turn changed everything: It bites thrown into hell. He jumped with the tacos in Firmino’s face. Red Atlético with ten, the game broken. And Klopp looking at the opportunity with saliva on each ball while Simeone asked the stadium for more voice with his arms in a pinwheel. But the game still had a twist left. Or two.

If Atleti cooled the game, knowing how to suffer, an error cut it short. It was Hermoso, who committed an absurd penalty, one of those who do not let sleep, on Jota. Salah marked it. 77th minute and the game at the beginning, Liverpool ahead, both wear, sweat and heroic afterwards. Simeone pulled out all of his plans at once. Suárez, Correa, Llorente, Lodi. Almost at the same time that Giménez dropped into the area and the referee whistled a penalty. But he called the VAR, went through the screen and rectified. The last minutes were a waste. Of courage and heart. De Correa, that beaten-sculpted footballer, in front of Alisson looking for the triple mortal. It would have been the perfect ending for a Metropolitan hugging the defibrillator. But that last twist never came.