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Ander Capa's volley from outside the area was an act of faith. There were not many rational arguments to think that this strike, in the rejection of a corner, was to find a clear path to the goal between such a tangle of own and strange legs. Nor were there to believe that, in case of overcoming such an accumulation of obstacles, the ball would be able to flee from the clutches of Aitor Fernández , who went to San Mamés without a ballot but with a magnet in his gloves. But Capa hit him and the ball came in, because this Sunday was not a match for reason, but for passion. And only with her did Athletic minimize Aitor, go back to Levante and get three points of justice in one of his best games this season. [Narration and statistics: 2-1]

23 shots, 10 of them in goal, needed the team of Gaizka Garitano to add their second consecutive victory in a cold and rainy noon, the second of the five consecutive (for now) that await Athletic in this odious Sunday schedule to 2:00 p.m. He had to wait until the 88th minute to transform his superiority into a victory, after allowing the Levant to get ahead in what was almost his only defensive error and having to navigate countercurrent throughout the second half until he achieved his goal and that San Mamés is still a fort: 16 of the 20 points in the 'Cathedral' have added Athletic, a baggage that only exceeds Barcelona at this stage of the championship.

In a sport as given to the topic as football, each visit to San Mamés usually has three of them paired: bad weather, hot fans and danger of a standing ball. The first is becoming less frequent (although correct this Sunday), the second is more than debatable and the third is directly a lie. False in attack, as a corner Athletic player has not scored since the beginning of last season, and false in defense, as Levante demonstrated in the last play of the first part, in which it was his first approach to the rival area in The whole game.

Because those first 45 minutes were a monologue of Athletic as incontestable as sterile. From the first moment, Garitano's team claimed the ball and restricted the match to half the field defended by Levante. The triangulations on the right between Capa, Raúl García and Williams were illegible for the granota defense, which suffered greatly to tackle the danger and was not even able to arm kickbacks, thanks to the intensity and red-white precision when it was his turn to steal the ball.

Immense in goal

If Athletic did not advance, it was because of the exceptional performance of Aitor Fernández. The former Lezama, who almost had to appear in Mondragón at eight in the morning for the constitution of the polling station in which he votes, was immense under sticks in that section, especially in two auctions of Muniain and Raúl García to which he responded with spectacular reflexes. Athletic did not give up at any time, but not only did he not achieve the goal he was looking for, but he conceded one in the prolongation of the first half. Miramón won the game to Córdoba in that corner and extended the ball towards the small area, where Postigo took advantage of Athletic's inattention to introduce the ball between Simon's legs.

That goal left the Garitano against the worst possible scenario, since it did not trace a match since he did in March in Montilivi. Córdoba paid the broken plates of the conceded goal and with Ibai in the field Athletic continued with the script he had raised in the first half. The tenacity resulted before the time of the game, when a very pumped center of Capa took advantage of Muniain to head to goal in the second suit and tie the duel. The indefinition of Aitor and his defense to protect that ball allowed the midfielder to impose his scarce 170 centimeters between the populated rear of Paco López .

After the tie, Garitano introduced San José for Unai López , a brazen bet for verticality rather than possession. Athletic continued to knead goal opportunities, but Aitor's elf always appeared to tackle them, especially in a Capa shot from outside the area that he sent to a corner when he was already sneaking past the crossbar. There was then a pending account between the goalkeeper and the side that the rojiblanco ended up charging with the goal that placed the final 2-1 on the San Mamés marker.

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