Hala Atleti, Aupa Real?

By: Al | May 8th, 2009

Phew… I’m finally done with school so now I can concentrate much more on, what else, Atlético Madrid Offside! This summer I’ll spend my final teenage months enjoying what I love… the suburban life, Pro Evolution Soccer, fried chicken, and of course, baking lots and lots of cookies (no homo). Enough about that… on with the preview.

This is the weekend to root for both Madrid teams. No, don’t go to the little girls section of your local plus size store to get your brand-spankin’ new Real Madrid jersey just yet, or ever. We only want Madrid to win so we can trump Valencia in the league standings and secure ourselves in a better position for when we face them next.

Now, it’s a bit disrespectful for me to wish a loss upon a great club like Valencia. They really do deserve to win this weekend but they are still our competition. In many ways, they are like us this season. Both teams are stacked enough to compete with the best, yet strange losses plague us and strange draws plague them. We’ve had many funks this season and so have they. So that one point advantage pretty much says that they’re better only by a hair.

Don’t get me wrong, I still hate Real Madrid more than anything, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Raul point on that stupid 7 on the back of his shirt at the Mestalla. Then again, seeing Villa or Mata down the merengues would also be sweet. Ahh screw it. If they draw, I’ll be happiest. Let’s leave it at that.

Oh, and Valencia are more than capable of beating Madrid. There.

Don’t count out any team that has David Villa.

Before anything, we must win the game against Espanyol in order to take advantage of any possible slip. I’ll say it now: if we can’t win this game, we can’t make the Champions League. On paper we could, assuming other results fall in our favor, but every game left must end in a victory, no exceptions. The hardest game left will be Valencia the following weekend. At this point, I can’t honestly tell you yet what will be at stake during that game until next week.

Espanyol

I miss the old Espanyol, the mid table version that could surprisingly hold their own against the likes of Real Madrid and other very good clubs. They still can, but they are obviously not as solid as before. This season, they spent 18 weeks in relegation zone, 18 weeks too many from a team that was this close to winning the UEFA Cup two years ago. They seem to have gotten back their groove, and are now in 14th place only 4 points away from the relegation zone. That means they also need all the points they can get from the remaining 4 games in the season, and they haven’t been slacking with trying to avoid the drop zone. They haven’t lost since the end of March, and that speaks volumes. They’ll enter the pitch on Sunday with full confidence that they can win.

The last time the teams met, we won 2-3 at the Montjuic in December and it was the last game before the holiday break (read Greg’s review here and watch those goals again). Oh how different things were back then. Atleti made 3rd place and Espanyol was in the gutters. Now it’s two teams actually fighting for something, and that alone will make this game more exciting.

Prediction: 2-1 victory for Atlético. Forlan is on fire and I don’t see him not scoring. Since the Santander loss (which still stings) the team is well aware that there is nothing to lose. They won’t play like chumps because they know that playing like ass will bite them in the culo. And the supporters will probably whistle them into 6th place and Europa League games against teams from Armenia.

~~Hala~~ Aupa Atleti!