Atlético hit rock bottom – AS.com

This is the chronicle of a televised collapse. Also in the Cup. Of the team that was everything, not so long ago still champion, not even ashes remain. He jumped in Anoeta dressed in that red shirt, in tribute to that game also war, to life or death, against Celtic, in Glasgow, which beat on the shirt with the usual shield and was actually an oxymoron. That strong Atleti is today a grotesque. dust in the windor. And without an ‘ole, ole, ole’ to cling to, that sounds like a savior like ten years ago. The suit of the man in black is today a mourning suit. La Real came out with her boots smeared with soap for the bathroom. Imanol’s is the quarterfinal team. Atleti del Cholo continues to stumble to nowhere. Second title lost in six days. disaster to disaster.

He tried to scratch the Real soon in what bogged down this Atleti. The ball stopped, the feet of clay from his back line. Ordered 4-4-2 with Vrsaljko, Felipe, Hermoso and Lodi already trembling when Elustondo was introduced like a knife in Oblak’s area to head a ball alone, so easy, again. He opened the season. La Real a rival whose breath you feel on the back of your neck, that sticks to you, that does not let you think. Januzaj stamped a ball on Oblak’s post on the next play. Not even for those did Atleti wake up. That he did not see the ball, an object only in txuri-urdin feet. Cholo’s plan was making waters. Hide behind and João Félix as a false 9 to run the cons, with Koke, De Paul and Herrera in midfield for nothing. But no one touched a ball, as if a freight train was already passing over them.

The technician’s first hoarse cry was after fifteen minutes, feeling every fiber of his black shroud suit. One more step. That’s what he asked for. His men gave him as obedient soldiers. The royalist impetus disappeared like a wave undone on the shore. De Paul took out the periscope and threw a ball at Carrasco’s run who, alone against Remiro, also stamped it on the woodwork. That split the match in two. Atleti reconciled with the ball, began to knead it in the center. Carrasco and João exchanged places so that the Belgian could attack the freed space. Every ball was a touch, gasoline lit, the battle of Glasgow.

But this Atleti is not that one. Nor the first of Cholo. Ay, Godín, ay, Miranda. Today to the canvas always on the same flank, that wall today turned to dust. And Imanol did not forget to keep scratching around. Between Merino, with a twist highlights in the front, Silva and Zaldúa took the ball to Januza’s headJ. The music of Psychosis filled the air with the lateral center, Oblak came out but not, as if he was afraid of life beyond his line. Januzaj stood up before three straw rivals, Felipe, of course in this photo, Correa and Lodi, to head at will. Goal. Atleti went into the break with the assisted breathing that the last play of the first half gave them. A stick from João after De Paul took out the periscope again. He finished offside. It was a rattle. That lead in the pockets that fills everything, League, Super Cup, since December. fiasco to fiasco.

But it was. As much as Oblak gave orders to Felipe, Hermoso and Herrera just before the second half began. But his throat contracted at the first ball. Sorloth on the counter, one-on-one, alone against him after a mess by Felipe with the ball that sounded, another night, like broken glass. A goal that was death, death in January, the checkmate of a season, a style, an essence. The man in mourning responded with a triple change. Outside Correa, Lodi and Koke. Inside the most offensive he had on a bench full of boys: Suárez, Lemar and Cunha. La Real received them with another shot from Sorloth which, this time, was repelled by Oblak. Felipe, meanwhile, was still dazzled by the lights of his own festival.

But the Real was a drumming in each set, the bath in each ball, each action, all directed at Oblak’s goal, Sorloth convertido en Halaand. A doorman who looked ahead and only saw nothing, lost men, disoriented, disconnected and with their mouths and eyes full of soap. And that the Real raised its foot. I was already in the quarters. Atleti pushed, with Cunha, with two kids, Javi Serrano and Carlos Marín, but all desperate. It was seeing him run and cling to his chest with a sigh of pity. The Atleti del Cholo who admired himself, who won, now only lives in the newspaper library.