Atletico Madrid lost to Real Madrid in the Madrid derby over the weekend. You always hope for exciting derbies, and this one delivered, mainly because Atletico played until the 90th minute. From just watching the game, you would never know that one team (Real) is in second place and the other is third to last (Atletico) and would be relegated if the season ended today. Real jumped out to an early lead with a screamer from Kaka and a goal from Marcelo at an extremely tough angle. Real played better than they have in any game since the loss of Christiano Ronaldo. They finally showed that they have loads of talent even without C. Ronaldo. Derbies seem to bring out the best in players and Real came out strong. In the second half, Real took a 3-0 lead on a terrible defensive play from Atletico's Luis Perea. Players lose their starting jobs on blunders like that. Just poor play. Higuain just ran up and took the ball away and scored. However, only a minute later Sergio Ramos was red carded and Atletico came back to life. Granted, Real was only playing with 10 men, but Atletico went on to score 2 goals in the 79th and 81st minutes. They went on a tear and almost made it a match for the storybooks. Atletico made a valiant effort, but in the end they did fall short.
So while Atletico deserves a lot of credit for their effort on Saturday, they needed more than a moral victory. They needed some sort of silver lining on the extremely dark cloud that is the start of their season. A win against Real could have been that lining and the start of their climb out of the cellar. As mentioned, to their credit, they never gave up and they played the entire 90 minutes. They had as many shots and controlled the ball as much as Real. They are as good of a team as Real and most every other team they have faced this season. They have all the players, but haven't been able to piece it together. It almost came together in Madrid on Saturday night, they just needed a Manchester United stoppage time to get another goal. Another goal to tie the game would have been huge for Atletico. To crawl back from a 3-0 deficit against their rivals could have saved the season from an emotional standpoint. Unfortunately it didn't happen and their season is over. I know it's only November, but they only have 7 total points, while the league leaders already have over 20. Atletico won't be relegated, but they aren't catching the leaders this season. Much like the photo, the loss on Saturday was probably the knock-out blow. Hopefully Atletico doesn't give up entirely because they have loads of talent and can easily disrupt other teams down the stretch. Still, it's a sad consolation and role for a team with so much talent and that had such high expectations at the start of the season.
Real Madrid 3 - Atletico Madrid 2
That didn't look like a red card to me. In fact it looked like Sergio Ramos (why can't he just be Ramos?) got the ball and that Aguero knew it and tried to stay on his feet to continue the play. It wasn't violent so the official is saying he took out the last man with a clear goal scoring opportunity. Tough call.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I didn't think it deserved a red card either but I wasn't sure if I was being objective or if that was my Real bias coming through. Like you said, it looked like a legitimate challenge and not a cheap take down from behind. My guess is that the ref thought that he deserved a red because there was no one else between the player and the goal. But other defenders were closing in fast so even if Ramos hadn't tackled him, I'm not sure he was guaranteed to get a shot off.
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