Atleti continues in its collapse

Levante made the wound that bleeds this Atleti bigger. There is a lack of football, ideas, reaction in a team that engulfs itself when it is not accompanied by the epic, the goal that it saves at the last minute. An Atleti from disaster to disaster, from defeat to defeat, infamous in his particular collapse. Even the whistles have woken up in the Metropolitan. But it is that Atleti came out already broken, with that neck fear, of a mistake, of fitting in, of his own defense, from the first minute. They were two teams with injuries on the grass. But one, Levante, went out looking for gauzes and cures. Clenched teeth, defense of three and high pressure from the first ball. As if it weren’t the last. As if the bottom was the other, the team that behaved as such: Atleti. While the world watched this Tuesday and Wednesday the return of the Champions League, its first round of 16, the Metropolitan played the match postponed by the Super Cup. To catch up on that battle and its only. And hard. There is so much fear of fitting in, that he enters the games with a pale and timorous air. It wasn’t losing, it was how.

Sinking behind, he trusted the contras and the return of that couple who had given him the PCR in the afternoon: negative for Giménez, at eleven with Savic. But with Giménez and Savic, this team conceded four goals at the Camp Nou that took them out of the top four and Giménez was, after twenty minutes, a footballer who squinted under the photos in the photo. Because, closing man, in a ball sent from heaven he went to clear with his head but instead of doing it forward he did it backwards. Error. He had just given the ball to De Frutos. A De Frutos who ran with him towards Oblak, pursued by three guys who couldn’t reach him, the Uruguayan, Reinildo and Savic, but they blew their breath on his neck.

It was only two moves ago that Oblak had warmed up his gloves. It had been two moves that Oblak had already shown that tonight was not like the ones lately, that tonight they could call him San Jan again. First shot of the game on goal, a header from Roger, who repelled his lunge. When he saw De Frutos arrive, he remained calm. He endured and his foot did the miracle. Ball to corner. He did not intimidate Levante accustomed to blows this season. It stayed the same. With control, pressure and play. Pushing all of Cholo’s men towards the Oblak area. An Atleti that, in defense, turned Lemar into a lane to make Reinildo a third center back. Surviving behind no longer by defense, but by accumulation of men. De Frutos, with a broken wall, continued to lead around the area, Levante pushing hard, although without clear shots.

Atleti looked and only seemed to know how to look. It didn’t stir, it didn’t come out. With Koke and Kondogbia, unable to build, to generate football. De Paul, meanwhile, in the band, already with yellow, he faced each action at the risk of red. Trotter, jerky, Llorente was the only danger to him when he won the bottom line. So little, so desperately poor. Cunha and Correa, disconnected, were starters as Suárez and João could have been from the bench: zero contribution. Lemar launched a frank chance up before the break, which came between whistles.

Atleti only took one more step, leaving the balls behind and taking steps forward, in a martial and steely formation, towards the Cardenas area when, like so many other times in recent afternoons, they looked up and saw themselves behind on the scoreboard. De Frutos looks for Melero and Melero, impales and goes inside. By Oblak’s stick, which came to touch it. Not at all, to burn his fingers. The referee was able to fix it right away, when he called a penalty by Duarte’s hand. VAR call: Llorente was offside. While Simeone was preparing a triple change (João, Suárez, Vrsaljko), De Frutos once again stood before Oblak as Voldemort would have done: full of bad intentions. The goalkeeper stopped. Cunha was injured.

no beautiful ending

The Atleti pushed looking for another smile of the epic but without shots on goal. And so it is very difficult, so it is impossible. But Atleti lost his flashlight when it was his turn to attack and he looked and only saw himself surrounded by shadows. Levante, meanwhile, embraced the other football, at the time of wasting time. And the minutes passed and all João’s talent was not enough, he did not finish lighting. The air was all already a murmur. Growing runrún, mumbled air, whistles, Giménez turning around and ordering the stands to shut up, more whistles, every time he touched a ball. Sounds from another time, very far from the past, that Cholo had always kept far, far away, with his arms in a pinwheel. Hermoso was missing, but the rojiblancos jumped into the seven added minutes as if they were their last on earth. And they were filled with everything. Because of the red and white precipitation and need. A goal by Correa disallowed due to a foul by Giménez, a stick from Malsa from the middle of the field that fell like a truth on the Metropolitano and Oblak who, in the rival area, desperately headed the last ball: this time there would be no Beautiful ending, this time the only thing left for the Atleti was his ugly, infamous party, the photo his own involution. His fall, without the background being appreciated. Just fall, fall, fall. While the distance gap with the Champions grows.