At 94:10 a race of Angel Correaa rebound and a stumbling shot by the Argentine striker leveled a derby that was speculative for more than an hour and then chaotic, with the score at 0-1. Eder Militao in ’64, the temporary suspension of the duel in ’69 for 22 minutes – due to the constant throwing of objects from the Athletic Front– and the final, agonizing, red-and-white tie, between the maelstrom and the previous embarrassment.
Two radically opposite derbies. The first, until 0-1 for the white team. The second, later, when the game resumed. In between, an unacceptable fact in football and any sport. After the visiting team’s goal, A lighter fell in Courtois’ area. And then more. The goalkeeper of real Madridwith a past at Atlético, gave one to the referee, Busquets Ferrer, who went to the field delegate to warn him.
The protocol marks it explicitly. The public address system issued the first warning. Another object. Then the second. Another one. A bag fell next to the Belgian goalkeeper. The two teams go to the locker room. Not even the request of Koke Resurrection -the captain-, Diego Simeone -the coach- or José María Giménez to the Atlético ultras to stop such an attitude. The meeting stopped.
The red and white team still waited a few more moments on the pitch, when Real Madrid had already headed to the locker room. The match was initially suspended for 10 minutesit lasted longer, with both teams inside the stadium. Then it resumed. Real Madrid had 0-2. And Atlético tied. The final 1-1with the suspense in addition to the VAR, whether or not it was offside. It wasn’t by millimeters.
Nobody won. Neither the real Madridentrusted to a specific moment in attack, nor the Athleticwho lacked ambition until he felt like a loser. The two are one point closer to Barcelona’s lead. They took advantage in part, because they played more to not lose than to win, Barcelona’s errors and rotations 24 hours earlier in El Sadar.
In today’s derby, precedents matter. They command respect. They are a warning mechanism. Precautionary. It is the fear of repeating past times that protects the coaches, their board, their players from unnecessary risks, aware of the importance of the smallest detail, of the lethality of any error, due to the level that arises in front of them.
The passes are for security. Verticality is unthinkable, unless it is so visible, so clear, so clean of rivals that there is not the slightest margin for the opponent’s recovery, much less in their own field. Responsibility also takes away the audacity that at other times, with other adversaries, in other scenarios, seems indispensable.
Atlético felt it. Real Madrid, three quarters of the same. The beginning was a first contact. A declaration of respect from one to another, as if each attack were a turn in a chess gameto see what the attacking team was capable of with its movements, with its time of possession, with positional offense. Kickback is prohibited.
First Real Madrid, the opening four minutes. Nothing. Then, Atlético, who made less visible than they should have that, in such a scenario, their best movement was on the left, with Julian Alvarez. The Argentine world champion overtook Rudiger parallel to the baseline. His shot, from no angle, was thwarted by Thibaut Courtois. For the first time, Simeone initially brought together Sortloth, Griezmann and Alvarez. The great society he has devised. It didn’t really work, without the impact or luminosity it claims. The Norwegian was substituted in the 55th minute.
Real Madrid, also contained, was less timid in the first half when it faced and played vertically. It wasn’t worth much in the entire first half. Two hits of Valverde. The first one flew Oblak, splendid. The second saw him go outside. Then he threw Bellingham. He also stopped her. He even dribbled in his area Vinicius.
Real Madrid’s offensive shifts were already better, longer, more threatening. If at the beginning Atlético recovered quickly, with the intensity proposed in the center midfield by Simeone with Gallagher and Llorentelater it was not like that, but the other way around. Moment by moment, meter by meter, the white team took control of the match, in the tense traffic to the break.
Everything is still very measured, everything too stipulated on the board, in the control of every detail, in the reduction of imagination, against everything unforeseeable, with a penalty claimed by Rodrygo on the edge of the interval and with a counterattack of Sorlothwhich made visible the hieroglyph through which the striker moves, the resolution of which was unsuccessful.
Vinicius did not appear, his daring subdued and appeased. Barely Rodrygo, until he launched a high shot in the 50th minute. Bellingham did so in midfield positions rather than in attack, without exploring all of his finishing qualities. Neither did Griezmann at Atlético, until he grew in the second half. All so essential for the attack. For a more offensive, more ambitious derby, more in line with the full potential of both squads.
Atlético and Real Madrid needed much more, also gripped towards game time, waiting for an impulse, a signal, a circumstance, when the effort opens spaces in the defensive rigor that their coaches advocated. They were threats, more than chances, until the white team found themselves at 0-1, Eder Militao’s volley.
Vinicius’s first relevant action, knocked down by Le Normandis at the origin. Then, the free kick, the Brazilian winger’s cross from the left wing and the accurate shot, solitary at the far post, by the Brazilian centre-back to unevent the derby, also to frustrate the local block. Without the maximum ambition there is no future in LaLiga. When he had it, when he saw himself as a loser, saved a point through Correa.
RGS
