SEVILLA-ATHLETIC | Game Over, Seville

The LaLiga dream ended this Monday for Sevilla with a defeat that, although mathematics still says otherwise, leaves the Nervión team too far from Atlético (six points plus goals), Barcelona and Real Madrid, both at four. Athletic resisted the attacks of a team from Nervion that was thicker than other times, but which burned the ships in search of the goal. Iñaki Williams ended up finding it almost in the discount, with the premises desperately overturned towards the rival area. In the sixth, after five victories in a row, Lopetegui's men played and said goodbye to the dream. Game Over.

“Do it as if you no longer play anything, as if you are going to die tomorrow, even if you see it too far … Do it as if you do not know that it is over.” Borrowed from Leiva, the chorus of a Seville that did not look back in search of what seems impossible after this puncture. A Seville that did not keep headdresses (Koundé) or warned (the same French defender, Diego Carlos and Acuña) thinking about Valdebebas and next Sunday because on the night of the Guadalquivir only Athletic, Athletic and Athletic existed.

Although it was an Athletic low minimum: to the injuries of Yuri, Capa, Muniain and Dani García was added, minutes before the game, that of one of the best centers in Spanish football, Íñigo Martínez. To finish off the table, before he started to sweat, Raúl García also had to retire injured. Marcelino was given just enough to make a clean eleven, with footballers like Morcillo, Vencedor, Vesga or even Villalibre that just a few news programs carried the alternate poster without suffocation.

Whoever plays this Athletic plays usually competes. Among other things, because it has Unai Simón. A goalkeeper who has his bad nights, yes, because at 23, under the sticks, youthful sins are still committed. But that for something is right now the head of the Spanish National Team. Perhaps the anxiety could something to Seville, to which it cost him something more than other times to string danger. At times he did, thanks mainly to the Acuña-Papu-Ocampos-En Nesyri connection. Two very clear in the first half, both for the Moroccan striker, capable of finishing off a chopped header and a strong shot on the edge of the small area with a lot of goal, but they stayed at that, it looks, thanks to two tremendous interventions from the Vitorian goal.

Athletic pecked on the counter and with some set pieces, although without disturbing Bono until the second half had already started, when Villalibre woke up Koundé early in a great swing and his shot went close to the post further away for the Moroccan goalkeeper. Sevilla struck less than in the first half, just a failed Chilean from Ocampos and a distant shot from Rakitic that licked a squad. Marcelino refreshed with the five changes very early and Lopetegui intervened with another striker, De Jong, and Joan Jordán, who has also been among cottons.

Simón once again covered the Acuña goal when the Nervión team had thrown themselves to die in the Bilbao area. Koundé played almost on the right wing and Fernando as a midfielder. But Sevilla was not able to find clear shot situations while he waited for Marcelino's team, in search of a prize. He was found by Iñaki Williams (0-1, 90 '), after one against Sancet. A goal that surely gives the Biscayan forward that self-esteem that Marcelino spoke of. On the other side of the street, disappointment will surely take hold of Sevilla: LaLiga's dream has been drowned before reaching Valdebebas to start scanning the shore.