The Estadio de la Cerámica is a stage in which Unai Simon seems comfortable. It can be said that this season the match with Villarreal has been the first great performance of the '1' of Athletic. Until finally luck smiled at him with a pole. In the previous course he also drew decisive interventions in the fiefdom of the yellow submarine. Nobody doubts its category. Higher. Garitano came to qualify him as “the fucking master.”
The truth is that he had a strange campaign. In the first functions, practically, he had no work. But the little that came to him was a goal. However, he lived his debut with the national team, also attacking the ownership above From Gea and from Kepa. Standing out above all for his game with the foot, a facet little exploited with the rojiblanco team. He also made mistakes in the league that nobody expected. Either way, Murgia's goalkeeper has already activated his 'shield mode'.
And that against Villarreal began with a scare, with the penalty with which Medié Jiménez punished him for an exit before Fer Child. The VAR, with Hernandez Hernandez at the controls, rectified that mistake. Later, he unfolded the catalog of interventions with which he used the staff last season. On the edge of rest, Unai Simon signed a save on a shot from the right of Ruben Peña to the short stick.
Shortly after returning from the changing rooms, the '1' of Athletic took forward with his left foot a heads up against Fer Child, who had stood alone before him with a filtered pass from the asset Gerard Moreno. Immediately afterwards, he solved in two times a distant shot of his own Gerard Moreno.
At the time of the game, again the top scorer of the League, with those eight goals, tried his luck somewhat heeled from the left. The rojiblanco goalkeeper deflected the shot with a hand out. Trigueros could not reach that rejection.
The young man Yeremi Pino, who entered the second half, smashed his first kick into the right post of U's goalNai Simon who, in the first hour of play, made the same stops as in the previous four full games. On the second attempt, with center of Gerard Moreno and combed by Trigueros, hooked a volleyball, after the failure to clear Cap, with which he was finally able to pierce the Bilbao goal. It was the debut as a gunner for the 18-year-old Villarreal footballer.
The San Mamés guard raised his private stop count this season to 21 in the 15 games (with a 1'40 percentage) that he has played. He occupies the 18th position in the goalkeeping ranking, he is climbing in this table after occupying the last places at the beginning of the competition. The leader in this statistical section is Domènech, from Valencia, with 55 interventions, followed by Edgar badia, from Elche, with 47.
Leave behind those mistakes against Valladolid, with poor foot control and subsequent penalty to Marcos André, transformed by Orellana. The bad serve with the hand against Celta that ended up costing the goal of Blades. Or the false start in Valencia, together with a defensive marking error, which ended with the goal of Manu Vallejo.
Unai Simon shows personality. Temper. He gave a great show in November, just after the Pucela blur. He attended the third call from Luis Enrique with the selection. In the previous two he had not played. And it was released in a big way. He made his debut in the friendly with the Netherlands at the Johan Cruyff Arena and later the Asturian coach kept him in the UEFA Nations League matches against Switzerland and in the historic defeat of Germany. The arch is very well guarded. Shield activated.