Mercy? What’s that?

By: Al | December 7th, 2008

Sporting Gijon 2- Atlético Madrid 5

Matches against little teams are incredibly fun.

Of course, I only say this because we won. We absolutely needed a win like this, something I’ll dub a “Barcelona win” because of the insane scoreline. Thanks to some unfortunate scorelines in the top part of La Liga, our season doesn’t seem so bad after all when you take a good hard look at the standings.

Yes, we can’t get cocky but now that we’re only 3 points from both third and fourth place (and with a better goal differential than the teams in those places) our first goal of being in Champions League zone isn’t impossible.

Every player on the pitch played like they had a fire under their ass. Those “bursts” of energy that teams love to have (and Man United hate) were all over this match. Gijon did the honors with the first goal with a header following a corner. It only took a minute for Atlético to respond with an assault from kickoff and Kun Aguero, like the little danger kid that he is, bicycle-kicked an amazing goal to even things up.

Atlético played with much tranquility even though Gijon wasn’t slouching and playing their butts off. Chances everywhere for both teams, and some silly mistakes were made by the midfielders who missed some easy goals. It didn’t matter, as Kun made up for it with an easy tap-in following some clumsy Gijon ‘keeping.

The second half started right where both teams left off, with lots of running of the ball and good shots on target. The third goal was scored after the defense failed to clear the ball before Forlan reached it, and Forlan only ran up to the goal and tapped it in. Lucky goal, because the ball barely went through the keeper’s legs (nutmeg!) and he could’ve just passed to Kun to help complete his hat trick.

Boy was Sporting pissed. The resilience that they’ve demonstrated in previous Liga games (noticably the Valencia match) was still there and they scored a typical “golazo” scored from outside the box. No chance for Leo Franco. Sporting wanted to get back into the game, and they absolutely meant business.

The match didn’t slow down at all and the game was so b-a-n-a-n-a-s that Gwen Stefani would be proud (hurf durf I’m so funny). Sporting immediately got possession after Atlético’s kickoff then Atletico snatched the ball, Maniche got ahold of it and shot a cracker that barely flew past the wrong side of the post. This shot was so close that when Maniche got subbed, he was all mopy and was probably thinking about what could’ve been one for a highlights video.

Any fears that Atlético had about this so called “Gijon” were erased as Maxi scored a tap-in from a Kun assist inside the box. Gijon’s chances of comeback were diminishing and their energy was still there, but once Forlan scored the final goal, an easy one-on-one, the match was already over.

Highlights:

Atlético fans laughed their way back home with this 7 goal thriller. We are now inching closer up the standings, 11 points away from the very-excellent Barcelona. Something (temporary) to cheer us up is the fact that we’re 2 points away from Real Madrid. Their explanation for their loss to Sevilla today: “LALALA I CANT HEAR YOU THROUGH ALL THIS MONEY”.

Sixth place never felt better, and the shit-brown tint of our season so far is slowly fading off. Lets just hope this good streak isn’t temporary.

We play Marseille on Tuesday (and fly there that same day) for the final Champions League group stage match, and want to win it in order to avoid 2nd place in the group and possible placement against the Lyons and Juventus’ of the competition.

And be sure to welcome guest blogger Greg who’ll be helping out this month!

Aupa Atleti!