Atleti arrived with a “nervous” this Saturday in San Mamés, which they did not manage to straighten out after ninety minutes. A good Athletic Bilbao, cheered on by more than 48,000 supporters, dominated Simeone’s team, who matched the team in intensity. … from Ernesto Valverde, but they only stepped on the accelerator in the last minute with the score 1-0. It was late and they returned to Madrid with a defeat that left them in fourth position, behind Villarreal who kept winning, and eight points behind Barça.
Staying at The Artist hotel, just over a kilometer from the Cathedral, Cholo’s team left the concentration to head towards the stadium, a journey which usually takes ten minutes by car, twenty for those who have to walk. However, as COPE reported shortly before the match, the expedition arrived at the stadium late, an hour and twenty minutes before the initial whistle, having spent almost 40 minutes “circulating” by bus around Bilbao. Something that caused “anger” within the club, who denounced that something similar happened last season. The official version of the Ertzaintza, responsible for commanding the convoy, attributes this delay to “heavy traffic”.
Beyond the anecdote, the two teams faced each other after defeats this week, but Ernesto Valverde and Simeone quickly tried to forget. A look ahead. And then, it was one of the quintessential classics of the League. “I don’t dwell on what happened. We have to focus on the match that awaits us, because it will be hard and difficult against an important rival with a complex and difficult stadium due to the atmosphere that is always generated,” said the colchonero coach in the preview.
San Mamés, silent on Wednesday transformed into Mbappé’s garden, awaited Atleti in “boiler mode”. “There is only one Athletic and it is Bilbao”, sang Herri Harmaila, his jubilant audience, hyperactive from the first minute, infecting the rest of the stadium and the lions’ eleven. With pace and activated in the pressure after the defeat, they sometimes blocked the visitors in front of Oblak’s goal, who were waiting for the counter-attack. They were on the verge of breaking the zero-zero score in one of them, which Unai SIMón thwarted by taking a good foot in front of Thiago Almada’s shot.
Athletic, hit hard this year by injuries, recovered Ohian Sancet. He and the team remember last season. With Nico, who sometimes drove Molina crazy, the “lynx” commanded the attack of the Bilbao team and managed several headers to give his team the advantage, taking advantage of Areso’s lateral crosses, the best of the first half. Hancko enlisted the help of Nico González to go down with his team, who struck alone again and again in the face of Cholo’s agitations. Before the end of the first half, Valverde was forced to move the bench, calling on Vivian to replace the injured Laporte.
At half-time, Simeone did the same, replacing Gallagher, in yellow, with Koke, trying to give some control to the midfield. It didn’t work. Athletic was superior in the duels and Atlético even created less danger than in the first half. The locals carried the burden and the youngest of Williams and Sancet continued to scare Oblak. As so far this season, the ‘txingurri’ team lacked a goal, because despite the feeling that the goal could fall, the Slovenian had no valid intervention.
In August last year, when the two teams met for the last time in San Mamés, it was a similar evening. With a tie that only Correa managed to break after an individual action from Sorloth in stoppage time. The Argentinian being excluded from the team, Simeone called on the Norwegian, in case the flute wanted to sound. He didn’t want to. The striker had him in mind after eighty years, but he failed to defeat Unai Simón. A minute later, Berenguer, who had not yet appeared much, did his team justice by putting the ball into the net with his bad leg and from outside the area after a low pass from Nico.