Hoarse but not collapsed appeared Simeone before the media, at a press conference. The match had just passed, this first leg of the quarterfinals. And Cholo looked at his side and there he had a wound, but only one. The plan had been almost perfect. “We play with the thought of passing.” Pass and not win: the verb he uses, sure, is not trivial. His party was not that of the City of Manchester. His party is that of the Metropolitan. Yesterday’s 90′ were only a long first part of surviving one of the great favorites to win the Champions League, finalist last year.
Guardiola described the clash of styles as “stupid”, but that was what prevailed. His team to the touch that touches. The one from Cholo to the close that closes. “They have the great ability to deny you what you are,” the Catalan praised Simeone from the press room the day before. And that happened. That the City played for 70 ‘without a prize, without Oblak appearing in the photos, stamped again and again on the rojiblanco wall, men and men, legs like axes cutting all intention. But, in his plan, Atlético so close to Oblak, in the few cons that the rojiblancos spun, the pressure after City’s loss was infernal, the races drowned. João ran alone, among four rivals, and when he raised his eyes, looking for a partner, now that they had been able to run, no one accompanied. Atlético, perfect in their plan, impeccable without the ball, finished the game for the first time in their history with a piece of information that will remain in the newspaper library: zero shots on goal. And zero also out.
The only loophole, Pep’s plan B
But Foden came out, Pep’s plan B when Cholo’s was already on the pitch: Griezmann, Koke and Llorente out, Cunha, Correa and De Paul, the team abandoning Oblak’s feet, the Argentine looking for the Brazilian with long balls. It was Guardiola’s that blew up the other’s board. Between the legs of Reinildo, the best rojiblanco in the night, he found the fissure, the corridor towards De Bruyne, who, with a cross shot, unlocked Oblak’s padlock. The 90′ raised at 0-0 ended with that injury, 1-0, assumable. Despite the shrapnel on Cholo’s suit, it had been his blackboard that had commanded, the one that had been imposed. That the City was not a roller, the marker a sack.
In the head of the Argentine also the game by game, and the next, this weekend, Between round trips, it is against Liverpool, their great rival in the Premier, Klopp’s men are one point away. The ‘enemy’ that Atleti brought from Anfield 2020 turned into friendly fire. The fatigue, the intensity, what Pep is playing for in that game against the ‘red’, three days before traveling to Madrid, for that return that, in reality, in Cholo’s head is a second part. The match in Madrid, it is clear, will be different, Atleti is no longer only worth defending, they already need a goal to equalize, two (for now) to overcome. But everything has changed that the goals against are no longer worth double. Manchester’s injury is only a point. change the scenerythere will be only 90′ left (if there is no extension and so on) and Simeone plays with his plates, his glasses and his tablecloth. And Guardiola already choked on the grass of the Calderón the last time. What if the same thing happens with the Metropolitan?