Super Cup: Atlético 1-Athletic 2 | The champion shows his claws

Athletic left and left Cholo there, dilapidated and alone, looking for in which curve his Atleti was lost. In that of time, the infirmary or the decision to bring goldsmiths to those who best make clay jugs. The times of poetry in its oven are over. They left, diluted all their champion gestureIt wasn’t that long ago, like a sugar cube in water. Nothing remains of that. Only the mud, which drowns. And that João Félix wanted to put his name to the Super Cup as soon as the ball was rolled. Koke kicks off center, Lemar receives and looks for him. The Portuguese impales him at the bottom of Unai Simón’s net. Second eight of this semifinal. The linesman raises the flag. There is no goal although yes. Canceled. “Nearly,” gestures the Portuguese. A little with many meters, they revealed the VAR lines. Athletic breathed, that they had not finished leaving the booth and already had the marker as a shackle at the foot. The King Fahd was cold. Half-empty, despite the tarps on its stands to cover up its gaps. Soccer soon caught on. This is also LaLiga, Atleti and Athletic seemed to yell at Riyadh. But that was not football. It was vestiges, scraps, hardly anything. Unbearable, unpalatable, every minute as long as a pregnancy. And the warmth of its people so far away.

And that Atleti came out very vertical. An Atleti back to 5-3-2 with long lanes and Vrsaljko as central and not Felipe. João Félix repeated the play of the second eight at minute two. Either. The ball, this time, went out. The rojiblanco momentum died after Lemar fell in the area and the referee did not want to see a penalty. Marcelino, after the initial scare, adjusted his slate, tilted with surgical precision and took control. He plugged inside. The dry, tall grass became a forest in which Cholo’s men got lost, slow, unable to find a clearing through which to send balls to João and Correa. And, meanwhile, things were happening in the Oblak area.

They were all around Sancet. His feet don’t play, his feet feel, they intuit. The passes, the gaps, to the teammates. As he found, with a lob pass, Williams for the free shot. The goalkeeper disrupted with the hard glove. Minutes later he was like Lemar, claiming a penalty for Kondogbia’s stomp. It was clear, as it had been in the opposite area. The referee did not see and the VAR did not want to see, the new rules. The party was filled with knots until completely entangled. A tribute was made to the yawn. More interesting was reading the seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time of Proust, see the grass grow, count grains of sand in the desert, see Cape Verde-Burkina Faso in the Cup of Africa.

The areas disappeared, the only attacks were balls attached to the area that flew like lost drones (for strikers with the height of Correa and João). Marcelino depended on connections Sancet, Williams, Muniain. Those that Kondogbia all swept with their boots, in that stadium with so many empty seats, so far away, as football would have been infected by the cold and soulless atmosphere in the stands of this semifinal. Of João Félix, by the way, without news after that distant minute two.

Llorente stayed in the shower after the break. Lodi, to the green. Without Simeone changing the drawing. Neither did the party, the game, installed in its particular lunar plain. We had to wait until minute 51′ to see the first piece beyond those two penalties, that goal disallowed by João, Oblak’s save. De Paul entered the match due to a touched Kondogbia. A piece that was only about one more speed. But there was so little, so much fear of error, as if the tie was worth the two coaches, no, that it looked like a gale. Or just the foretaste of the storm to come. petrichor filled the aire.

João Félix asked for the lights. He wanted the chronicles to write his name again and not to talk about the changes. Lemar launched a corner and João finished off, forazo, at the far post. It was a meek, easy shot, to the stick. But Unai Simón and Yeray yours, mine, did not understand each other and the goalkeeper ended up sneaking the ball with his back. A goal at the height of the game so far. a churro Athletic also woke up, with that smell of rain filling its nostrils, among that sea of ​​half-empty blue seats. He responded in the opposite area at minute, with a point-blank shot from Iñigo Martínez that Oblak bagged as usual, with a miracle, on the line. It was the second that Marcelino tied. Statistical question, I would think. Oblak this year gets a shot of two. Yeray, after a corner. Serve, shot and goal. Athletica turned upside down. With initiative, strength and a refresher: Nico Williams, who entered the 70th minute in a triple change. Two claws and ‘agur’ Cholo.

Marcelino gave the orders thinking about that fifty percent. The doors to Oblak were open. The rojiblancos without blood, sheltered in their crystal defense. Because Felipe was not there but Hermos was. So much rides rides so much. It came out of his rib. If Oblak did a miracle again to repel a whipping from Nico Williams, after a corner, the next shot, also born from a corner, would end up in his net. The pastries, the coffee and the corridor would make it beautiful. Nico Williams picked up the rejection of the corner in the front and, voilà, inside. ANDThe binary code of Atleti exploded another day. The corners against are already as they once were in favor: almost a penalty.

Simeone lamented in the band, overcome, overwhelmed by the game, another day this strange season, Luis Suárez was a strange entity there, in the Unai Simon area, without a suitable ball reaching him to fight for, finish off. An Atleti who said goodbye to Riyadh and of that Super Cup in which two years ago he moved with a kick at the wrong time by Giménez, at the head of Iñigo Martínez, which cost him a red card when the VAR called the referee, who had only given a yellow card. Up to the top of mud, drowned. Meanwhile, the rojiblancos who wore pistachio green all spoke of fists in the air, of a feat, of a champion wanting more.