Never stop believing – AS.com

No team writes the heroic better than Cholo’s. Goool. From the final rain that cry emerged, goool, to fall on O Dragao as a sentence. Goool. It came out of the throat of a footballer on his knees, his fists to the sky. Goool. It was the 90th minute. It was 0-2. The end of a counter launched by Griezmann and ended by Correa. It is the Atleti del Cholo. Back at the right time, here and now, to embrace the eighth of this Champions like that poem by Kliping: “If you can keep believing in yourself when everyone doubts, go ahead, go ahead.” And ahead there was only the goal, the eighth.

An Atlético that jumped with three centrals although in its pure and healthy squad, it only had one, but Vrsaljko passed him on the right, Kondogbia on the left, with the lanes for Llorente and Carrasco. An unexpected eleven where Cholo wanted his players to be men, not names. The game was for that, the night for it. Came out with rhythm, anticipations, trying to leave the shadows behind, the fear. Conceição, while, curious, had all his doubts short, Grujic, Pepe and João Mario, with very high pressure, and some sharp kick, to reduce the rojiblanco momentum. They played the same thing, life, the Champions League, they were also leaving in these 90 ‘. Tense, he ran numb, without finishing letting go.

A bite on the leg left Cholo without Suárez, who left in tears, desolate, and Cunha entered the party with the serious gesture of someone who goes to war. To win it. At that moment, at the speed of a galloping horse, Carrasco appeared. To a rival he made a pipe, to another, a bicycle and to the third, what he wanted. But Griezmann did not reach his low center and Llorente, pounced on top, to shoot him out. The party was entering another state. The radio turned up the volume. A goool that came from San Siro. From Milan. Heart stopped. Porto was no longer worth what happened on O Dragao. Another match started. The Atleti locked up. Atleti, unable to leave their area, set out to do what they had to do: shrinking balls, water, lunges, praying five meters from Oblak, melted into business as usual lately, fear in every ball. But as the night set in Porto, a figure emerged. He came in green, with his miracle gloves. It was San Jan. Because yesterday Oblak was Oblak. He saw the storm coming, he blew on his gloves and stopped. He took down a shot from Luis Díaz that brought hell while Llorente threw himself to the ground so that the rejection ended in Taremi. Oblak everywhere.

But it is that Atleti did not carburet, did not respond, melted in its engine room. Lemar, Koke and De Paul outmatched, outmatched in physical and football, slow, unable to win a split ball. For Conceição Vitinha danced, for Cholo, three shadows. The best thing that happened to him was given to him by Klopp: goal by Salah. Everything went back to the beginning. With a goal, Atleti was in the eighth. Grujic was looking for Oblak one last time before the break with a ball in his hands.

Porto were classified when the match returned, although the score remained 0-0. Atleti had 45 ‘to change it. Enough. Although at the beginning it was still slow and unsuccessful, the centrals stuck, only holding on to the miracles in the tips of some gloves. Or the legs. Because Oblak took it out to repel a Taremi cross whip and avoid the goal. In the subsequent play, as it happened so many other times, a corner and a cape blew. It was from Griezmann to paint the night of resilience, of cholism, to go back to playing soccer, never stop believing. Taremi combed back where the Frenchman waited with his left hand ready to cut off the dragon’s head. Goal, delirium, kilos of fear exhaled. Cunha was able to extend the advantage with a play like Ronaldo, he went for power and stung the goalkeeper, but Pepe saved on the lime. Porto opened its hand and the Champions League had gone. It surrounded the party. that was filled with fights. The wick was lit by Otávio when he stepped on Carrasco, who responded disproportionately, red. But there was Diego Cunha Costa to balance and get a similar slap from Wendell. Red Balanced match. Again ten against ten. And fifteen minutes consumed, in a clock that ran for Atleti.

Porto rushed over what he had and what had escaped him. Conceição introduced four changes, freshness. Simeone sat a Cunha who was the best to introduce Lodi. Men in the area where there was a broom, Kondogbia, that swept each ball, Correa was looking for a counter, like the one that Griezmann threw at him to seal the round of 16, although the match did not end there but with a goal from De Paul that rounded it off, so that it didn’t matter what the radio said from San Siro, to leave Porto’s last blow to nothing In this Champions League, that penalty that Hermoso did and Evanilson scored. It already tastes the same. Among the fine rain that cry had already emerged before, goool, hugging the eighths. And that music continues. The Champiooons. For Atleti.