Atleti had it – AS.com

And at the end of the game that Atleeeti, Atleeeti stung the silence. A cry to heaven from the Metropolitan. A shout dedicated to those 18 brave men in front of the stands. Broken, in tears. Several minutes after the end of the game they had not been able to leave. He had lost his team, Atleti, and yet no one there felt like a loser. There are games that are very difficult to write. Matches like this one, which can only be counted towards the end. When the glitter is ash. When you see Guardiola finish it off with his fists raised, embracing zero cerismo and the 1-0 first leg as a ticket to the semi-final. But Atleti woke up late. When these rooms only had forty-five minutes left. Forty-five minutes that he filled with occasions, with oops. Forty-five minutes of tachycardia in the chest, of praying out loud with that word, Atleti. And the occasions followed one another while the City footballers fell to the ground like skittles, in that old trick of football from prehistory until now: waste time when you win. Yes. Until Guardiola.

Playoffs have no rehearsals. When one starts, the 180 minute tick It is the sand in a clock and 90′ of it had already been consumed without further clarification that Simeone wanted to sew from the first ball. Savic 70 meters from Oblak. High pressure. Atleti looking straight at City. This was another game. The second part of Cholo’s plan. Lemar was the novelty in his eleven. A Lemar attract and filter between the lines. A Lemar for Atleti to take steps forward, fluid. Against a City with Bernardo Silva as a false 9, Walker back and Cancelo and Mahrez looking to widen the space from the wings. Atleti had a clear script, as in the first leg. Every time he got a ball, he went out on the wing and Lemar looking for João. The first, fast and one touch, the second, free. Koke covering the backs of both.

At fourteen minutes the match already had another guest, a bandage covering Foden’s head, after a clash with Felipe. A nervous Felipe, in one of those days that he can only have: capable of ruining anything. The yellow that she played then saw her shortly after a protest. At his side, luckily, Savic, cutting everything. On his firm shoulders and the legs of Kondogbia, with the ball and without the ball, short and long, Atleti dared to rise up to keep Guardiola’s gaze.

A Guardiola who, then, had already adjusted his board to exchange Silva and Foden. The match clicked. The first, undetectable, always receiving space and time to think, opened the grass. Atleti began to take shelter in his favorite cave, the one in the grass at Oblak’s feet, again more concerned with tying than untying himself. City was pressing, corner by corner. Gündogan headed a ball to the post that shook 67,000 hearts at the same time. Felipe ruined the rejection, putting his chest before another ball to kill from Foden. The rest loomed without anything changing in these rooms, no matter how much Cholo tried to start differently. The City with an immaculate 1-0 in the first leg. João alone in front of the world. The idea of ​​5-4-1, with Griezmann on the wing, to the right, subtracted more than it added.

In the booth, Atleti must have looked at the clock. The game of 180 minutes already had only 45 left. 45 minutes to change a destination that seemed to be written in English. She burst from the booth with another gesture, with jaw and power. And a declaration of intent from the first ball after the restart: Griezmann’s run and shot to the side of the net. Atleti stole and bit like he hadn’t done in the remaining 135. But he had finally woken up, and when he did, the tie was still there. Lemar, Griezmann and João met, the Metropolitano raised his voice, that Ale, ale, aleee covered in old Calderón. Only success was missing in the final meters. Atleti was already capable of sneaking balls into City. João finished high a center from Llorente, a shot from Griezmann went wide almost kissing the post. Guardiola looked worried. From the break the ball seemed to have returned wrapped in butter for its footballers, unable to do, to dominate, one, without reaching or combining, disappeared before an Atleti who snapped. With intensity is Atleti, a team capable of exciting to the very root, all waste.

While the assists attended to Walker fallen on the grass, Simeone took the opportunity to introduce three changes: Carrasco, De Paul and Correa for Griezmann, Lodi and Carrasceither. It was 69. Another match started. Electric, vigorous. And all red and white. The time of the brave was already in the Metropolitan. The last part of the plan. He to die mine die. Trying to drown the English with a rain of the ball and chances. De Paul had it twice, but one shot went wide and the other high. Correa tried, hasty. He grabbed Atleti to City by the chest without letting him leave Oblak’s area. From Atleti the robberies, the occasions, all the danger, the last bullets, those of Cunha and Suárez. Now only the epic remained. And when Atleti clings to the epic he is capable of the impossible. But Stones got in the way of Cunha’s ball when the Metropolitano already had the goal in his mouth, but Savic was left without an angle in the corner on that occasion, but Carrasco’s center could not find a finisher. Neither Suárez nor Correa arrived. Three minutes left. Atleti so close, it seemed. The Atleti so Atleti, at last. But Felipe was still there. And there was still the stellar performance of him. He mowed down Foden. the right spark to blow up the repressed tension on a soccer field smeared with gasoline, so much nerve, repressed tension. Tangana, red to the Brazilian, discount of nine minutes. When football returned, Atleti tried to recover that past moment. And Oblak put his gloves on Gündogan to continue looking for the epic, but his moment had passed, Felipe had cooled him down. Those very long eleven minutes of discount were of no use. Correa’s last chance (imagine it would have been Correa?) at the hands of Ederson. The Atleti fallen due to that injury in the first leg that seemed minor but turned out to be fatal.