Atleti wake up – AS.com

When he woke up, Atleti had an oxygen bottle in his hand. The one that gave him that El Sadar marker. That 0-3 against Osasuna. An Osasuna who had jumped embracing “what works you don’t touch”, the same eleven that beat Rayo 0-3. An Atleti that the opposite, five changes. Simeone waving a blackboard after Levante, Carrasco back, Lemar with COVID, Llorente in his place, Herrera in the center, João and Suárez up, Correa and Griezmann waiting from the bench. The game had not started and, for Cholo, another bad news: sixth in the table, Villarreal was also ahead in that particular League of five in which life was slipping away.

Hence the gesture with which he appeared. Nothing to play with the clock, to let the minutes go by on credit for a victory only by shield. A gesture so far from the pale of Wednesday. In the second minute, a corner. To the third, another. and goal. Because João celebrated his one hundred rojiblanco game with the ambition of turning words into deeds. He breathes El Sadar and takes out the rifle. Four goals had until yesterday. Five were after that ball that Carrasco launched from the pennant, Suárez distracted and Herrera cleared horrible. The ball fell like from the sky to the Portuguese who, alone and at pleasure, sent it to the bottom of the net.

Cholo took a breath despite the fact that, before his eyes, as soon as he got ahead, it happened to his team. He dwindled, sheltered in his field, leaving the meters and the ball to a drawn Osasuna 4-1-4-1 with Budimir as 9 and Chimy on the wing. The rojiblanco command went out, satiated with that 0-1. Although the referee did not see a slap from Vrsaljko to David García in the area that he could call a penalty. The domain was red. The rojiblanco game, the yenka, the steps back. Two bullets whistled around Oblak’s wood. David García from above, Rubén García on the side of the net.

It was after the last one that Atleti woke up again. The ball stopped lasting what a candy in the hand of a child. It wasn’t a disaster, it wasn’t the Levante, the infamy. If João’s goal had tempered nerves, Herrera changed his gesture. You help Koke, free Llorente to go up and down. The initial 4-4-2 had mutated to 5-3-2, the Mexican was the order and the game, the calm. Without letting Osasuna overwhelm, silencing the bullets near Oblak, but without depth, as if the area of ​​Herrera, the goalkeeper, no longer existed. While João tried to escape on the brake of each match. The kicks to the ankle, the fouls and tarascadas with so little punishment: at rest, only the yellow Chimy. Osasuna, without the ball and occasions already, relied on set pieces. Before the break, Budimir finished off a corner that, after playing in Moncayola, was stamped on the post. The next thing was a miracle from Oblak, a chest stop. The break came with Osasuna pressing but Atleti thinking that, perhaps, their luck has changed.

The second part had not started and, for Cholo, however, another bad news: Felipe for Giménez. On the grass only the minutes passed and those fouls on João that, sometimes, while he raises his arms and protests, disconnect him. The game only invited a siesta until Cholo’s other striker took out his pistol. The years this time were wind in favor. João Félix served him a delicious ball, wrapped in all his talent, for the counterattack. Suárez didn’t even need to control it. He raised his eyes and saw 38.5 meters of grass ahead, two rivals who, his legs now, no longer dodge. He also saw Herrera, the goalkeeper, ahead. And with his left foot, almost without the need to control it, that was how good the ball João had sent him. He didn’t even look at the goal. As soon as I hit I already knew the end: goal).

Arrasate’s reaction was a triple change and 4-4-2. Kike is noticed as soon as he steps on the grass with a powerful shot over Oblak. The goalkeeper pocketed. Osasuna would squeeze the last twenty minutes with balls into the area. But there was Reinildo, a Cholo soldier, order in a defense that was not a verbena. Atleti resisted, recovering part of the soul that seemed lost three days ago. Without fitting in, without even needing to get Griezmann outwith the always adding of Javi Serrano, with the brooch that Correa put on him. Waking up on time, maybe. Just before United. And in the Champions positions.