It kills you, it gives you life

Simeone runs the band. Hoarse, liberated, almost crying. Three minutes have passed from that discount that can shatter that one, the one from Mestalla. Atleti has already tied the 0-2 against, but Hermoso jumps on Cunha’s cross shot as if it could have no other destination than the goal, 3-2. He kicks it with his left, pushes it with his soul. 44,999 people explode at once: how Atleti hurts when it kills but how much it fills when it gives you life. Indescribable. And what a football scriptwriter. A redemption, which came in the discount, against Valencia and with Mario Hermoso as an unexpected hero.

Valencia without Wass, who stayed at home, and with a scheme of three starting centrals, it became a labyrinth from the start. Simeone had asked for applause and affection and affection and applause for the team, from a hobby that is always there, even if the sky comes black. And the black of recent times was again on the grass of the Metropolitan. A team tangled up like a ball. And with The Scream Munch installed in the head, all anxiety. Opposite, Valencia seemed the cousin of Zumosol. So high, so strong, so fast. A giant Goliath moved by Soler and Guillamón. He pressed and pressed. Koke, overwhelmed from the first ball and De Paul insisted, curiously, on a particular masterclass: how to lose ball after ball. And without Savic.

Valencia sought from the beginning to scratch the rojiblanca weakness. First arrival in the Oblak area and lateral center that Giménez cleared as usual, a closet. Simeone breathed, although the coat with which he appeared almost immediately began to exceed him. Very rushed, the mourning suit tightening again. Despite the applause and affection, the film before his eyes did not change: his team weak, timid, unable to take steps, perhaps unconscious but there they were, towards the lands of Oblak, with the memory, perhaps, of the days when they protected so much. And living so far from the opposing goal, Suárez shows his DNI. A weak shot from him and a long shot from João were his only appearances in attack before Valencia fell on him like a guillotine. Again. That another time that has become a worrying routine.

And it is that Felipe did not play but Hermoso did, the hole through which the bullets entered. It occurred to him to anticipate and go out, very far from his position, to cover a Guedes who surpassed him as if he were plasticine. Guedes gives it to Musah, Musah beats Vrsaljko and a shoe. The ball went through Oblak’s goal like a spear. It is true that the goalkeeper could not do anything. As much as one of those, in the life before, stopped them.

The game that was no longer played a few minutes before, rough, rough, with orange yellows (Musah’s iron on Koke’s foot), that a Simeone-Bordalás will always be a film of shots and actionny many sticks in the wheels of the caravans. Later it did even less, the rojiblancos lost in their own anguish. As if the shirt had become a straitjacket. Numb muscles, dull head, unable to think, to run with sense, to play. The traps on his legs are put on by his own head. Duro enlarged the wound before the break, the man who, with his two goals in that discount at Mestalla, brought these times, so black. With the left. In the photo, by the way, you already know, right? Yes. Beautiful.

Carrasco’s night

Correa entered for Lodi after the break but the table remained the same. João leaked a good ball to a Suárez who spoiled it at the end. A minute later, Simeone removed the Portuguese to put Felipe in and whistles were heard. Simeone shook his tree, to see what would fall, if it cracked the wall of Valencia, so well planted. Cunha appeared like a Percheron horse with only one thing on his mind: raise the game, raise his head. Seven minutes later his blows on the shield to the chest, after finishing off a corner, could be heard above of goool, and that the goal was loud, so much anguish, need. Atleti released ballast. He looked at his chest and recognized himself. An Atleti del Cholo, all caste and heart. And clinging to a waist: Carrasco’s. Blessed, everywhere. There were three center backs, a pivot (Herrera) and everything else you throw at it. The Atleti at the feet of Doménech. Valencia already, except Guedes, was only dedicated to wasting time. Carrasco everywhere, that feeling in the air: that more goals would come. That one with the grass was the Atleti del Cholo. The 2-2 went to Correa and the 3-2 to that Hermoso who broke all his before photos, the ugly ones, and the damn painting of Munch in the heads of all those players, his teammates, who rained down on him next to the corner flag