Atletico v. Marseille

By: Greg | December 8th, 2008

Wow. Big game we have ahead of us tomorrow night.

The Atletico v. Marseille match is not only a game that would add points to bring us top of Group D, but also a very political and emotional game (mostly for OM fans). As many of you are aware, OM supporter Santos Mirasierra was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for involvement in events that happened October 1st, when Marseille was visiting the Vicente Calderon Stadium. This caused OM fans in an uproar, stating such things as “for every year Santos is jailed, a Atletico supporter will be killed”. This event has overshadowed the game itself, bringing many supporters to forget that this is a match between two teams, with eleven players each, who had nothing to do with the sentencing of Santos. Atletico supporters have been urged by their club to not travel to the Stade Velodrome to watch the match. Atletico itself has also been asked by UEFA to not travel til match day. Security has been assured at the stadium, but you can never been sure that everything will go as planned. Here’s to hopefully a great game without violence. But anyways, to the match:

Javier Aguirre is very pleased with his team’s condition, and with no injuries, was able to pick and choose from his full squad. Left out of this important game with Olympique Marseille are John Heitinga, Simao, Paulo Assuncao, Angel Bernabe, and Alvaro Dominguez. I’m guessing leaving the players out was for injury precautions, so the squad travel to the Stade Velodrome match day will be:

GOALKEEPERS
1 Coupet
25 Leo Franco

DEFENDERS
2 Seitaridis
3 Antonio López
4 Pernía
17 Ujfalusi
21 Perea
22 Pablo Ibáñez

MIDFIELDERS
8 Raúl García
9 Luis García
11 Maxi Rodríguez
16 Éver Banega
18 Maniche
19 Miguel
24 Camacho

STRIKERS
7 Forlán
10 Kun Agüero
14 Sinama-Pongolle

Still a very strong squad traveling, and hopefully, to provide a win over OM. Aguirre has stated that Camacho and Miguel would have inclusion during the match, so look out for solid performances from the two Atleti youngsters.
Although Atletico Madrid have a very strong squad, its not safe to assume that this will be a walk in the park. OM have a solid squad with some very talented players such as Lorik Cana and Mamadou Niang. Keep an eye out for Niang, as he’s had a pretty good season so far with OM, scoring 6 in 15 in Ligue 1 and 3 goals in 5 appearances in Champions League. Although I doubt there won’t be many Atletico supporters, if any, I still hope for no violences to occur. I look forward to watching this game tomorrow, and even happier once this whole mess is out of the way. Again, tell me what I could do better, this is my first important post, what could I covered better, or covered at all?

oh yeah, and

AUPA ATLETICO