The perfect night ended in stick

Soccer players grow old very young, their goals do not. In life, sometimes, what remains is that: a second of inspiration that is recorded forever. In this case it was a majestic ankle twist. That of Lodi, surprise of Cholo in his eleven, who seemed to whisper to the ball what he had read in the tifo when stepping on the grass. “Flying”. To Joao. At the head of him. He flies, he flies. And the ball flew. João threw himself on her on a plank, to put her where miracles happen, very tight to the post, at the bottom of the net. Six minutes of these eighths had passed and Atleti had already punched the tie. United, for a long time, seemed that they would not get up. But he did. And when it hurts the most. Unexpected. To leave Atleti with more cold than heat. Because in football, as in life, the beginnings are what determine the stories but it is the final residue that one is left with.

The goal came so soon that it undid his plans. Or Atleti himself, his departure in a storm: even the stones of a field trembled dressed another night as old Calderón. He played the match like that of Liverpool: from the bus, the red sky flared, the fans. Those of Rangnick, when they wanted to realize it, were in jail. Atlético filled the grass with traps, with a fierce, very high pressure, which only left English corpses in its wake.

United were not a team, they were just tall players who had no idea how to get out playing the ball.. The Atleti, a deafening scream that came from boots that filled everything. Those of Kondogbia, those of Herrera. His were all the balls, in the duels, in the distribution. One stole, the first, and the other trembled, the second, to send the ball where legs would not be congested. United roamed the field, Pogba and Fred blinded, Bruno Fernandes off, always forced to receive from behind, without knowing how to tear off those bars.

Sunken, disoriented, bordering on embarrassment. Sancho and Rashford were two islands and Cristiano was lost in other wars, all far away.. With the whistles, with the referee, with the teammate who didn’t pass him a ball. And, while, the Atleti, to his. To the typhus. To fly. Because Lodi was flying, unstoppable from the left, without defensive concern, only with miles and miles of grass ahead. And Llorente flew, as an interior. And Correa flew and João flew, two nuisances for Maguire and Varene, Rangnick’s center backs, who never knew where they were going to appear. They all flew. Come play, steal, triangle, attack. At rest the wound could have been greater, when deflecting Lindelof to the wood, a forced header from Vrsaljko, when he was showing.

The second part started as if the first hadn’t finished. Cristiano abroncando De Gea for go-you-know-why-reason and Kondogbia like a gigantic red light raised before the English in the central lane. But it is that the eliminatory ones do not have rehearsals: when the first leg begins, the ticking of the 180 minutes is the hourglass. An hour had passed when United managed to get their heads out between the bars. Recover some ball, stop being just fouls and João hit the ground. Some ball passed through the soles of the media, some play they braided, Oblak was no longer just an ornament in the background. Rangnick made three changes, all at once. Both sides out. Also Pogba, that’s why it was recorded somewhere that he had played this game. His was a masterclass on everything a midfielder shouldn’t do.

But the nerves were already there, hanging around Cholo. The English with pulse, weak, but still alive. Atleti, with all their dominance, only had a goal advantage. Simeone brought out his best footballer, João Félix, introduced Lemar as a winger and his team under the goal. The fears, the steps back. He would soon pay for it. He wanted to warn United with Cristiano first, from the front. But it was missing. And in England they also go high, to nowhere. He made it happen on the next play, the first in which United was really able to find a gap between the rojiblancos. Reinildo, until now a wall, lost the mark. Bruno Fernandes’ boot filtered the ball for Elanga. His cross shot went to Oblak’s net. So easy. With so little. After so long. You bare the shortcomings of Atleti in a second, in an instant. This glass Atleti behind. A blink and a defender goes and changes everything. All games like this.

Griezmann stamped a ball on the post, after Llorente put a ball to him to score a goal. He checked, he thought, wood. It was the day that no. United had escaped like Oblak that last ball, when he went to block. It will be time to travel to England to win. At least without the weight of that suitcase, the double value of the goals was. Which blurs everything. That moment that cannot be grasped. That emotion. The jump in the chest when seeing João fly to make a goal from Lodi’s ball that, for 80′, seemed forever.