All Hail Forlán….. and Watch The F*ck Out, Valencia

By: Al | May 11th, 2009

It’s official: Atlético Madrid are kings of the comeback. They don’t play any better in any other circumstance than being down goals. Playing with 10 men and being down 0-2 didn’t bring us down, in fact, it actually set everything up. We’re Atlético Madrid and we’re not going down at home without a fight.

Who was the conductor of this glorious comeback? Diego Forlán. Again. Seriously, I love this man. I’ll even organize a trip to Madrid so we can erect a statue which will stay up until he leaves for Man City or something. Okay, I wouldn’t go that far. Wait… actually, I would.

AUPA FORLAN!

ATLETICO MADRID 3 – ESPANYOL 2

The first half was one of the saddest displays that I’ve seen from the team in a long time. After Perea was sent off for a blatant elbow to an Espanyol player’s face, the team turned into a mess and watched Espanyol play them like fools. Espanyol was given a penalty, which they slotted in with ease, and then they kept on moving the ball up. A few minutes later, Espanyol scored again and about 10 minutes later they did it again, except it was ruled for offside. So within minutes, the game could’ve been 0-3, a position Atleti hasn’t been in before.

Diego Forlan said “oh hells naw” when the team was down two goals so he took matters into his own hands and blasted another rocket into the goal, ala the game against Barcelona. At this point, I could already smell the comeback, and it was only 7 minutes into the second half at this point. Atlético kept possession of the ball and Pernia made a great cross to the center and Kun tapped it in, no problem. It was 2-2 and I forgot that we were a man down. We didn’t even have a proper right winger in this game, but thankfully the ball would move through the left or center and Simao did his stuff to try to move it in.

It felt like forever waiting for that last goal. I actually started to get worried once the 90 minute mark had passed. That’s why football is so great, because it’s so unpredictable yet exciting. The goal was imminent and then it finally came, after Simao’s genius play left the ball with Forlan alone in front of the keeper, which he put in with no problem. Comeback: complete.

It was an on and off game but was it exciting? Oh hell yes it was. Maybe not up there with the Barcelona and Villarreal wins, but it was still great football. This is why Atlético can be so exciting. If next season they push aside those silly losses and moments of stupidity that have lost us points, this will be the team to watch, aside form Barca of course.

And I wanted our Luis Garcia to play, so there would be two Luis Garcias on the pitch and we’d all get a headache and AHHHHHHH

Standings: