It was ten minutes like ninety unbearable.Zubeldia found that ball in the front of the area, showered with a corner, and kicked it point-blank to beat Oblak. And, suddenly, Simeone was looking at the scoreboard. Ten minutes, ten as long as ten hours, slow and excruciating. And suddenly I was looking at the shirt txuri-urdin and I saw in her the colors of the Levant. Such good games, in the Ciutat, here, and not a victory, the mattress that began to diminish. And suddenly, that oxygen is lacking, that a fist of spiders climbs from the heart to the throat, the sugar in 280, the fear of the body present in this Atlético-Real Sociedad, 36th day. Because those ten minutes that remain are those of the first final that Atlético has left for this League, to win this League, it depends on itself, and Real has just scored 2-1. The tranquility by the 2-0 in minute 30 has disappeared. It's time to suffer. Suffer like Atleti. Nobody like the rojiblancos knows, but Simeone himself recognized it minutes later at the microphone of Ricardo Sierra in Movistar +, after leaving with his fists in the air to the locker room as soon as the referee whistled the end: “The suffering was unnecessary.” Not the first of the season on this road to the title.
Because the game against Real could be the story of Atlético's season so far. Overwhelming start, fierce pressure after loss, the Real that does not cross the midfield line until the 10th minute, Llorente starts, chances on Remiro's goal as fired with a machine gun, 2-0 in the 27th minute, tranquility. LaLiga is caressed. That Atleti who depends on himself has the game under control. La Real arrives. He arrives, yes, but he bumps into Oblak's stick or glove. As in that first round in which Oblak does not fit in and Atleti, game by game, only knows how to add three in three, while Madrid and Barça do not. In December champion, it was said, despite the caution always in the mouth of the rojiblancos fans, who know how to suffer, “wait, wait; match by match”. And those games came against Levante, a draw and a defeat, both in a row, and Atlético's mattress, so soft in January, began to unravel, thread by thread.
Match by match, penalty to penalty
Because the history of this League is being built at the end on moments like this, like those last ten minutes against Real. It happened on matchday 28, Atlético-Alavés, minute 84, Atlético wins 1-0 and Pacheco has just stopped a shot from Suárez. Savic elbows Rioja in the opposite area, checks the VAR, whistles the referee: penalty. Joselu will be in charge of launching it … But Oblak guesses and stops. Atlético fans dust off defibrillators, oxygen bottles. It will be time to take them out again six days later, against Elche, day 34. Atlético wins 0-1 when in the 90th minute the referee's whistle makes the sugar rise, the spiders climb. Fidel places the ball, shoots and the ball crashes into the post. Turn up the volume of that stanza of Sabina's hymn: “What way to endure, / what way to grow, / what way to feel, / what way to dream, / … / what way to suffer, / … / what way to overcome, / what way to live, / What a way to go up and down from the clouds, / Long live my Atleti de Madrid!“As in the two games that remain this season, two finals, even if they suffer. But the number 1 partner of 2004, Agustín de la Fuente Quintana, already said it in that Rushmore ad. “Atleti. It kills me, it gives me life”. And he is 180 minutes away from being a champion.