Sunday, 20 March 2011

Spanish League: Day 29

ATLETICO 1 - REAL MADRID 2

Intense, moving, passionate, great and in some minutes, the first and the last, exciting. This was the derby. Stressful even for those who do not sweat a drop. Glorious for Real Madrid, because enlarges its legend in these games, and honorable for Atletico, which had the final pleasure of feeling the fear of others, something is good, and against Madrid, that is a lot.

Those who wish may find reasons for hope. The visitor is hooked to the League and its pursuit is becoming obsessive. There should not be comfortable feel in the back the breath of the white team. For the host there is a consolation, to have cut a feet of the thousand that still separate the red-white team of the rich neighbor.

But let's go to the match. Now it's easy to say, but people suspect that Atletico did not make a realistic approach to the match. It was launched for the win with its eyes closed, its sword pointed at Cibeles and the horses galloping, putting the favourite application of Real Madrid on tray: the counterattack. With this scenario, every ball that was stolen by Madrid, placed team at advantage, with field in front and its players leading the race.

Contrary to expectations, the white steel trivote not hurt those actions. On the contrary, even better. Khedira joined the attack with unusual courage, to the point of having several scoring opportunities. The coach has a lot of blame for the team has won the spirit, the pressure, greed. Also belong to these four meters that distinguish the extraordinary and standard teams. Wild values when sound in the microphone, but rewarding if placed on the grass.

All the Real Madrid players celebrated the second goal of the match against Atletico
Real Madrid celebrates Özil's goal

 The white team had two chances on goal before scoring the opener on the 11-minute mark: Benzema controlled the ball passed from Khedira, entered the box and defeated De Gea with a slightly lobbed shot. Atletico reacted fiercely and forced Casillas to spectacularly save shots by Aguero and Reyes, amongst others. Ozil scored the team's second strike in the 33rd minute from a strange shot that confused De Gea and forced him to make a mistake.

Atletico tried to breach the gap after half-time. Forlan put Iker Casillas to the test again in the 47th minute and the goalkeeper made a sensational save. Real Madrid kept trying to net another strike to sentence the match and Cristiano came close on the 65-minute mark, but his header went over the crossbar. Ozil devised all of the team's counterattacks in pursuit of a goal. Mourinho decided to bring Adebayor on for Benzema, and two minutes later, Di Maria came on for Ronaldo.

Real Madrid started to show exhaustion from their Champions League exploits in the final 15 minutes of the match. Mourinho made Arbeloa come on for Lass to strengthen the defence (81') and, when everything seemed to be over, Aguero managed to defeat Casillas inside the box, adding tension to the derby. Mario Suarez nearly scored in injury time, but his soft shot was grabbed by Casillas just before the blow of the whistle.

Summary

Stadium: Vicente Calderón
Attendance: 53,000
Goals: 0-1, m. 11: Benzema. 0-2, m. 33: Özil. 1-2, m. 84: Agüero