• Direct match statistics

Juanfran Torres had a knot in his stomach when he left to say goodbye to his people, minutes before the start. But until Morata did not hammer the Osasuna goal with his head, after more than an hour of red and white frustration, he was not satisfied with the tribute. Then his friend Saul would arrive and complete the first league victory of Atlético in a month. The goal is no longer an obsession.

At the break, on the way to the locker room, the Atlético players reviewed one by one the ten occasions with which they had besieged the goal of a Sergio Herrera , who rather looked like Jan Oblak . There were shots of all colors and they always ended up stamping with the colossal goal of Osasuna , who signed a first act of divine inspiration. It was Herrera, dressed in black from head to toe, like that legendary Lev Yashin , the only thing that separated this revived red and white team from having left everything in order to win again in LaLiga after more than a month of long parentheses. Its all-powerful tentacles kept the red-collar goal safe for more than an hour.

And it was Joao Felix , who has been taking off for a week, who was pulling his own with a stroke of genius. His lucidity, with and without the ball, was opening solutions towards a goal that remains a sudoku for Atlético. The Portuguese has the mental agility and the spark necessary to untangle any mess. He knows what his plan is long before he receives the ball. But, like the rest of his teammates, he lives under the spell that hides in front of the rival goal. Although, really, this time the sorcerer was goalkeeper Herrera. Joao, like Lemar, Saul or Thomas , had noticed from the beginning. But it was after a superb header, a gift from the Manu Sánchez youth squad, on the night of its premiere, when he learned that excellence would have to be touched to bring down the wall of Osasuna.

Without Lodi , injured, the left band Atlético went to the young Manu Sánchez , who dispatched a good handful of good handful of sharp centers when he shocked the nerves of the debut. It was his first hour with the first team. And Giménez , who had been away for almost two months, joined Felipe in what seems to be the most logical pair of plants to face great challenges.

Many things happened in that first assault. To begin with, it was the Navarrese, a team that never rests with and without the ball, who put their efforts to storm the Metropolitan. In just five minutes, Brasanac and Rubén García had already put Oblak in trouble. Osasuna demonstrated with facts why he had traveled to Madrid only three points from Atlético. Chimy Ávila was a permanent nuisance . Even in the middle of the rival fence, he claimed a penalty from Felipe on Brasanac, in the twilight of the first act, which seemed so. The referee did not flinch.

At times, Simeone's boys thought that, again, the spell would be impossible to break. But they were wrong. The appearance of Correa and Herrera were a butterfly flutter enough to alter fate. And in that final half hour Atlético found the goals he had been longing for in LaLiga for so long. Morata's head, always lending itself to the auction, discovered Osasuna's first waterway. And in the open, crossing enemy fences, Saul managed to outwit Herrera with an exquisite left-handed touch. There is no better remedy against anxiety than bluntness. Even if it is dropper. They needed about 20 shots to end their own fears. But days ago this Athletic has returned to smile.

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