Athletic dispatches the Barça team thanks to a goal from their striker in the discount and completes a semifinal box of Copa Nico, without any of those who were favorites
Iaki Williams celebrates the goal of victory, in San Mams.
The rebellion of the Cup reached its final climax in the most sacred temple of all who honored this competition. San Mams standing, venerating some heroes who overthrew in the last breath to Barcelona, eternal ogre. That of the Cathedral was the happiness orga of Los Crmenes, of Anduva, of the Txuriurdin tier of Bernabu. Long live the Cup because it is for those who believed in it, for the strong of spirit although weak of budget. (1-0: Narration and statistics)
Williams was the proper name of the red-and-white deed, which erased from the KO tournament to a depressive and soulless Barcelona, thoughtful as Messi was, so deadly about San Mams that he didn't even look like him. Setin received the first revs in the field in which Sarabia, father of his assistant, was little less than a god. Athletic embraces the Cup and the Cup hugs him. There are only four left and it is already known that this trophy will be won by anyone who expected him to do so. What else can the Cup be asked for?
The previous ones of great copper challenges are measured in Bilbao in days, not in hours, like a euphoria that goes on crescendo until the beginning of the duel. Even more when the echoes of the victory of the Royal Society in the Bernabu were arriving and it was beginning to be felt that it was now or never, that there was never going to be an option so apparently affordable – to say something – to win a title. It mattered little that Athletic dragged seven league games without winning or that his two previous qualifiers would have surpassed them in two penalties. The Cup causes an incomprable aphrodisiac effect in a city dedicated to the ahoranza of a Holy Grail that is lost in the memory of the times, always with Barcelona as a final executioner, as a curse.
It happens that on this occasion it was not the radiant Bara of other occasions, but the reflection on the field of a club addicted to public scorn whose only master beam wobbles through an Instagram story. These are new times, as you are well learning forced marches Quique Setin. He thought that in such an immense club he would have to manage the abundance and he suddenly finds a call in which only 15 players with the first team's card are listed. I had no more.
Griezmann on the bench
Preparing what will come from now -possible 'angels' or 'stuanis' on the sidelines-, the quarry made the first decision committed since he was in Bara. I decided to relegate Griezmann to the bench, a soccer player with a special idyll with San Mams, and a new attack was invented in which Sergi Roberto and Ansu Fati occupied the lanes and Messi the central zone. Garitano, meanwhile, finally removed the complexes and arranged the scheme of three plants that had given him such a good result at home and that allowed him to exploit the electricity of Capa and Yuri by the rails. That provision allowed him to squeeze the Barça ball out very high and effectively, marking man to man and trying to force errors from Ter Stegen, the only player left free. Somebody scared that another took the German.
Then, of course, Athletic backed down and watched with patience and concentration how the ball was circulating from here without any danger, like who watches the clouds pass and sees them so white that he knows he won't need an umbrella. He only had three approaches the Bara in the first half, two starts from Messi and a shot from Ansu Fati, and in the three imperial Nez appeared, who from the central position of the rear was an implacable ttem. He even encouraged himself to get on the attack once, but in the area he ran out of lights and without a shot. Less came the premises, but perhaps with more danger, because Williams came to score a goal canceled out of play without the need for the VAR.
Given that the thickness desired by Athletic was the one that prevailed in the match, Setin decided to turn to Griezmann as an agitator, instead of an Ansu Fati too young to ask him for outstanding daily. The French gave the Barça attack the dynamism that his team needed. He and Messi move freely around the area, thus eliminating the fixed brands with which Athletic had lived so comfortably. In one of just two mismatches of Garitano's, Griezmann forced Simn to make a saving stop with his boot And on the other, the goalkeeper repeated heroic maneuver, this time before Messi.
That's how things were, on the way to a tie that seemed hopeless. As on the first day of this League. Then it was a Chilean from Aduriz, this time a stealthy header from Williams. In both cases the ecstasy of San Mams, of a Cup that, impresivible, pure and sincere, excites as the first kiss.
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