Atlético 3 – Numancia 0

By: Al | April 19th, 2009

The downside of supporting a smaller club – well, more like a “not as big as Barca or Madrid” – is the fact that it’s sometimes tough to catch a good stream for games against more obscure teams. If you come from my generation, you’ll be familiar with the “glitch” seen in the picture here. That’s a good idea of how each player looked like on my stream for this game. Hell, I don’t even think I saw a ball the whole time. The commentary was at least good so I listened to the commentary while watching Juventus vs. Inter at the same time in another window. Go figure.

But hey, who cares if I couldn’t see the game well, Atlético still won. Banega scored?! The team connected well? Luis Garcia made an appearance? Holy crap! Plus, it was “Dia de las Peñas” (day of supporter groups). The least they could do was win anyway against an easier opponent, to prove that they don’t completely suck after losing the last home game to Osasuna (!).

ATLETICO 3 – NUMANCIA 0

Once again, Resino doesn’t fail to surprise everyone with crazy player selection and positioning:

Leo Franco; Heitinga, Luis Perea, Ujfalusi, A. Lopez; Simao, R. Garcia, Assuncao, Maxi; Forlan, Kun

Yup, he put Luis Perea, “the fastest right back in the world” (take that, Dani Alves) as a center back and it… worked? Usually it would be Heitinga in the center and Perea on the right, but he swapped their positions knowing well that Heitinga is a complete klutz inside the box and plays even more badass on the right wing. Like I said, it worked. Great job.

The success story of the match is easily Ever Banega’s, as he broke the duck and scored a great goal and did his part in fighting (hard) for every ball as he’s known for doing. And I’m more than happy for him. He has gotten many, many cards this season and has been subject to much criticism since arriving to Europe. We all know how much potential the guy has; he was great at Boca Juniors and he’s slowly establishing himself in La Liga although he needs temper control. Wherever he ends up going, whether it’s back to Valencia or here, I wish him luck. We’ll enjoy his presence while he’s here. Plus, I think he’s staying away from webcams… for now.

The match was all Atlético’s, who moved the ball around well and like usual, messed up many opportunities inside the box. It wasn’t until Banega scored that the game actually begun, and Numancia later scored an equalizer that was marked for offside. Too bad. We just kept on pushing and finally scored two more times. It’s really hard to see the third goal by Simao, but it was an absolute beauty.

As I write this, Valencia is fresh off defeating Sevilla and Villarreal drew nil-nil earlier. We’re now in 5th place at 49 points, 3 away from Valencia and tied with Villarreal on points. I was actually hoping that Sevilla would win, but what can you do. We’ve spent the whole season watching our direct competitors stumble and lose points just like us, so it’s become quite addicting to continuously check scores to see if Villarreal or Valencia lost.

Plus, Forlan is 5 goals away from Samuel Eto’o in the Pichichi standings, with 21 and 26 goals respectively. David Villa is at 23 goals and in second place as well. Considering that Eto’o is a beast, I don’t expect Forlan to catch up but it would be nice for a rojiblanco to pick up the award.

That’s my quick review, here are some pictures from the game. Yes, that’s Ever Banega’s package to Forlan’s face in the first picture: