The knockout Madrid from Anfield was left without a punch against a resistant Atlético. Not against ten for half an hour. A blank Real, dry, unable to scan an opponent with little offensive perspective, but a musketeer on the periphery of Oblak. Giménez, already with Atlético without the ridiculously expelled Correa, put a neighbor in check who was rescued by Álvaro a point, the best Real Madrid news. Ancelotti’s box lacked rhythm, better expertise with the ball, always very predictable. Simeone’s team, with little arsenal from the starting lineup, it was enough to tie up the rival.
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Courtois, Nacho (Álvaro Rodríguez, min. 77), Dani Carvajal (Lucas Vázquez, min. 83), Rüdiger, Eder Militao, Dani Ceballos (Modric, min. 63), Federico Valverde, Kroos (Camavinga, min. 63), Marco Asensio (Aurelien Tchouameni, min. 63), Benzema and Vinicius Junior
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Oblak, Mario Hermoso, Nahuel Molina, Reinildo Mandava (Giménez, min. 22), Savic, Saúl (Morata, min. 76), Carrasco, Pablo Barrios Rivas (Correa, min. 45), Koke (Witsel, min. 76) , Marcos Llorente (Lemar, min. 57) and Griezmann
goals 0-1 min. 78: Gimenez. 1-1 min. 84: Alvaro Rodriguez.
Referee Jesus Gil Manzano
Yellow cards Eder Militao (min. 6), Koke (min. 22), Marcos Llorente (min. 35), Nacho (min. 56), Nahuel Molina (min. 70) and Modric (min. 90)
red cards Belt (min. 64)
It turned out to be a match as stiff as the Madrid afternoon. With hardly any tracking in the areas, as if piranhas abounded in them. And many little tuned players, in foreign positions. In Madrid, Kroos, who was never meant to be a center midfielder. At Atlético, a squad of orthopedics. The best Griezmann has not been a striker. And even less has been striker Marcos Llorente.
Simeone sent with a lot midfielder and a thong attack. Carrasco, even the refished Saúl, were the ones who alternated with Llorente as Griezmann’s lifeguards. A lot of rojiblanco nomadism, little Madrid fluency.
As a result, an encounter with amputated areas. Benzema did not charge, Nahuel and Savic held Vinicius and Asensio, author of the only shot with bad luck in the first act, went and left. The clash, so contained by both sides, lacked protest football, some transgressor. In other words, some Vinicius, the main rattle of Ancelotti’s. Real did not synchronize, nor did Atlético, with two chattering teams in the warmer sectors of the game, far from the goals.
Reinildo’s injury —problems in his right knee— before half an hour nothing altered Atlético, who parked Hermoso as a left-back. An Atlético barely willing to defensive expertise. A Madrid with moorings, without footsteps of Ceballos and Valverde, too hung up on Vinicius. And, between one and the other, a trigger-happy referee, a lot of cards in a fair game, without bullying. An unorthodox save by Oblak before a left-footed shot by Asensio was all the ammunition for a bland first act.
So little expansive was Atlético that they even made Simeone intervene. After the break, Correa for Barrios. The youth squad had had as little volume as any of his comrades.
The party lacked gear. Ancelotti also intervened, who, in one stroke, gave Camavinga, Tchouameni and Modric a reel. But for marching, the referee. The man asked the boys for a head, but he lacked sanity with the sanctions. As proof, the expulsion of little thumb Correa by a elbow to the chest of Spartacus Rüdiger, who simulated a transitory death. The braid shot the Argentine with a direct red. The VAR colleagues made the slices.
With ten and a half hours to go, an even more restrained Atlético. Opposite, a Madrid just as cloudy, lacking in spark, for once lacking even Vinicius. Real gripped, came the unexpected visitor’s goal. It is known that in soccer there are no numerical disadvantages in set pieces. That’s how it went. Griezmann twisted a lateral free kick and Giménez, loose, came into the round with a header that was as clinical as it was forceful.
With Madrid upside down, Ancelotti recruited Álvaro to shake things up and Camavinga became a winger. The tall cadet, so fluent a week ago in El Sadar, took another step toward his possible graduation. Raúl’s student is not delinquent in the area, a sector in which he lives with familiarity. As evidence, his header for the tie. Modric launched a corner kick and there was no mattress player who took into account the son of the former Uruguayan soccer player Coquito Rodríguez, born in Palamós. Álvaro, who has poles for legs, caught a shot for the local corkage. As Giménez would say, an inattention, nobody knew who was marking whom. Winks of fate, Raúl also made his debut as a first-team scorer in a derby in Chamartín, back in 1994.
Álvaro as a float of a Madrid that did not give up for more. A flat Real from start to finish. Even against ten, when he rushed more than necessary and wanted to look for the goal before the game.
Hurry and more hurry in a game that required channeling football from side to side, inside and out, to scruff out the firm Atlético. Pitch by pitch was not enough for Madrid and Barça can give another stretch this Sunday if it does not go to the ditch in Almería. For Atlético almost a victory.
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