Atlético Take A Mental Vacation

By: Al | November 10th, 2008

Osasuna 0 – Atlético Madrid 0

I’ll be damned if our players aren’t holding their heads down in shame. It seemed like they learned their lesson from losing against Sevilla, Barcelona, and Real Madrid. The lucky draws against Villarreal and Liverpool (twice) seemed like Atletico had the ability to keep theirselves alive. And how did they try to prove themselves today? By letting Osasuna walk all over them and getting hella lucky that they didn’t score. With a more-than-complete squad, our attack looked more lost than a bunch of children that have never played the game before. Luckily, the defense saved our butts big time with a solid performance, but it was embarrassing to see the last-place team make us look like amateurs.

Atletico had a very sloppy first half. The passes were being intercepted, the challenges on the Osasuna players were silly, and Pernia even brought down Osasuna’s Juanfran in the box and allowed them a penalty shot. Luckily, Portillo took a half-assed penalty and Coupet blocked it with no sweat. If the ball was shot any higher than a foot, it would’ve gone in.

Osasuna woke up after their penalty miss and began going apeshit with good chances. Thankfully, our defense was super-tight and Coupet was in top form. If the Osasuna strikers took a little more time taking a shot and finding a better chance, the score would’ve been at least 2-0 by the halftime break.

Osasuna’s Juanfran and Portillo are brilliant players. They were all over the place and had very good shots on goal, sadly denied by Coupet. The best chance Osasuna had all match was when Juanfran ran down the end of the pitch and parallel from the goal-line and provided a killer cross that Portillo shot in, but was luckily kicked out by Heitinga. A very scary duo, I might say.

The second half was barely different. The only difference was that you actually got to see Kun Aguero and Diego Forlan on camera this time. Unfortunately, these two didn’t have too good of a game. Atletico’s best chance all game was a simple 2-on-2 in which Forlan and Kun were playing the back-and-forth game while approaching two defenders and Kun accidentally let the ball slip and end up in the keeper’s hands. No hard feelings, as it was a simple mistake, but Kun should’ve known much better.

After a bunch of good Osasuna chances and corner kicks, our team started getting desperate and shooting balls into outer space. Maniche was first, and his reaction to the sad miss:

Heitinga was next, then Pernia, then Maxi, then Ujfalusi. Atletico was cranky and realized that they couldn’t crack through the Osasuna defense, so these balls from bumblefuck nowhere were the only way we could’ve gotten the ball close to the goal. Once Simao shot the final free kick (and last play) of the game, the ball hit a defender and went out of bounds and the match was over. Just like that.

A draw was a lucky result for us. Our defense did well, but our attack was gag-worthy. This Osasuna squad looked revitalized (no victories yet, though) and with some better finishing, the game could’ve been 3-0. Atletico did try, but Osasuna tried much, much harder. The silly mistakes and bad passing could be tuned up a little, because it’s important that the team is at least able to connect.

Now, we’re 9 points from the 4th place spot, currently occupied by Real Madrid. I’d be happy ending the season in the Champions League zone but those hopes aren’t existent yet, not until at least the second half of the season.

These are games that we should be winning. If we can’t even defeat the top teams in La Liga, what else do we have to fall back on? 0-0 draws against the last place team in La Liga? Puh-leeze.

Frustrating? Yes. But at least we didn’t lose, and I hate myself for just saying that.