Chronicle: Atlético wakes up in Villarreal with a good dose of suffering
Opinion: Atlético poisons rivals, by Julián Ruiz
Luis Suárez. From Atlético's daring message in 2013 to last summer's siege: "We had him fried"
From a striker who has only scored two goals in more than three months, who had already been dry for five games, you could expect a wild celebration.
Though, thought about it, in a way it was.
Joao Félix controlled with his chest on the edge of the area, hit him with a volley and decided not to run but to walk.
He glanced in the direction of his bench and yelled at someone indeterminate "shut the fuck up" while putting his index finger to his mouth.
The question is clear: who was his vindictive message addressed to?
It's a question for him.
I will ask you in the next training session, I will see later if I tell you or not, "replied Diego Simeone, likely recipient - at least possible - of the Portuguese's verbal rebellion, quickly covered by Captain
Koke
during the celebration.
Cholo, of course, was asked several times about the celebration of the Portuguese and each answer faced her with a smile.
«I love the rebellious player, the one with pride, the one who wants to react to difficult situations after not scoring for a while.
The goal awakens something important in him.
I like that my players have pride, that they have strength.
The rebels, give it to me, "added the technician, implicitly clarifying that, if the message was for him, he sees it on the positive side.
Joao was the only footballer who had fallen out of the eleven with respect to the game against
Chelsea
.
A way, like it or not, to point him out.
He left after the break by
Lemar
, "replaced as a precaution by discomfort from a blow", according to Atlético, without further details, and occupied the left flank of the attack.
He did not have much impact but he scored the goal that tied the mattress victory, which was what it was about.
It was not a duel for aesthetics, but for triumph.
Suárez, to refuge
Before Joao Félix armed his right hand to score his goal -the thing ended 19-6-, Villarreal added 11 shots and Atlético, 5. In the pass records, the ratio of two to one remained in favor of the team Castellón.
Maybe numbers like this would have created a conscience for Atlético a month ago.
But after a February in which he had lost as many points as in the rest of the League, it was not a Sunday for poetry.
It was a Sunday for their prosaic tradition.
To be ugly, to be strong, to be lethal.
Because trying to win the League offers spaces to ponder aesthetics, but trying not to lose it, which is what Atlético does now, does not admit the error, but demands to win even when perhaps you do not deserve it.
That does not mean that it was a simple game, of course.
Simeone squeezed his head to order at all times what he understood his team needed, squeezing his catalog of tactical resources.
He started with five defenders, went on to play with four from minute 15 and after the break he regained his initial formation, with
Saúl
as an improvised left wing.
Atlético ended the game with a midfield made up of
Llorente
,
Kondogbia
,
Torreira
and
Koke
.
Reinforced cement to defend the result, as in the old days.
Luis Suárez
, with little presence all night, was one of those substituted, with a quarter of an hour to go, thinking of saving him from a possible fifth yellow card that would have deprived him of facing Real Madrid in the decisive derby. Sunday.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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See links of interest
2021 business calendar
Sampdoria - Atalanta
Crystal Palace - Fulham
Leicester City - Arsenal
Monaco - Brest
Villarreal - Atlético de Madrid, live