The aroma of soccer is provided by footballers and if San Mamés has, like Seville, a special smell, it is essentially so by those who have honored it for so long, before the old field and now the new one. So much time later, on his first day after the Covid-19 nightmare, Athletic returned to pay homage to his temple and together with an Athletic player who emerged more than a century ago from his own womb, he drew a tie carved in granite and that did not it serves no one. It does not mitigate the fear of Simeone's team to run out of Champions League next year, nor does it bring the team from Biscay closer to the goal of seventh place.

It was apparently a 'neonormal' Sunday in Bilbao: the fluid and uncut traffic, the half-gas meter, the terraces with rations of rabas and glasses of vermouth, clouds that threaten rain but do not finish releasing it and only a handful of Athletic shirts in sight. As if what was held in San Mamés was not a top-level soccer game but a discreet congress of, say, ufology. The 'Cathedral' was still the 'Cathedral', although it was less than ever, even if the canned 'txalaparta' sounded before starting or the hymn was preserved when the teams jumped, each on their own this time. From the press box, emptier than ever, about 20 journalists barely echoed from the pitch. "Alone!" and "back!" were the most frequent expressions, because there are not so many differences in reality between a Regional and First Division match.

The obligatory oddities, however, barely attract attention for five minutes. Then, internalized the new normality of football, what happens on the pitch, which is what this is about, is exactly the same as before this damn pandemic. And in the case of a match between Athletic and Atlético, both rougher than a pumice stone, what springs from the grass of San Mamés is a battle for each span of ground between two teams forged in the same mold.

No, it was not going to be a very nice game to watch, nobody gave a hard because it was, but it was difficult to make predictions after so long without references. Nor was it expected, for example, that Garitano would give Unai López a court in the midfield with Muniain , a variable that usually suits Athletic well, much as the Basque coach was more inclined during the winter to the strength of Vesga . Yes, it was expected, even if it was a novelty, the presence of Marcos Llorente as playmaker to accompany Diego Costa .

It was in fact the hero of Anfield who stretched the game, inventing a pass towards Carrasco that the Belgian, very active throughout the attack front, sent inches from Simon's goal. He did not take advantage of Atlético to intimidate Athletic and adopted a rather contemplative attitude while the locals grew from triangulations by the bands in which Muniain was the only essential vertex.

Athletic played with ease, comfortable sending balls to the area, until he found the award in a low center of Yuri that Muniain defined with the outside of the right boot, in a very difficult foreshortening. Oblak could not do anything , stellar minutes before before a header from Yeray , who of possible glory soon went to ruin. Two minutes after Athletic's goal, the center-back missed with the ball, then he was hooked and enabled Diego Costa to convert a pass from Koke into a goal . A mistake that tarnished the good work of Garitano's during the first half.

After a few first minutes of red-white effusiveness commanded by Thomas , the second part took on the color they had had for a good part of the initial 45 minutes, with a compact Atlético and a more proactive Athletic but reluctant to take more risks than they should. Perhaps Yuri, as bison as before the world stopped, explored unknown paths to seek a fortune that Athletic had not yet reached.

Simeone tried to alter the party's destiny by making changes almost compulsively. He started with three at a stroke and before the 80th minute he had exhausted the five he had available, while Garitano, aware that the pace would tend to drop, opted for physical profiles: Vesga, Sancet, Núñez and De Marcos . But beyond an auction by Arias that Simón saved under sticks 10 minutes from the end, the match was a constant loss of bellows, in which Atlético perhaps resisted a little better, without that serving to add the three points in the forcibly silent San Mamés.

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