The Lingering Annoyance of the Last-Minute Penalty

By: Al | November 24th, 2008

Something that isn’t new to us *cough* derby *cough* *cough* Liverpool *cough*. The match against Numancia was one that we had in the bag, until another one of those godawful penalties that referees simply LOVE to give against Atlético Madrid ended up shutting us down once it was scored, ending the match in a 1-1 that slows down our climb up the Liga standings.

The draw will hurt for an entire week, unless we defeat PSV on Wednesday and go through to the next round, enough to cheer us up for the time being.

Aguirre played the same exact team that beat Deportivo 4-1 last weekend. Atlético was often dominant and Numancia was barely trying to capitalize in the first half, and decided to defend their ass off instead, a nut that Atlético isn’t too good at cracking. Forlan and Simao had a couple of shots on goal that were denied, but t wasn’t until Forlan scored an easy goal in the 33rd minute that Numancia decided to try to score, albeit some shots from outside of the box that weren’t even on target.

The second half didn’t begin too differently as Atlético played a very relaxed match and Numancia was yet to change their tactics. However, Numancia woke up and had a few good chances, one of them being an open shot by Numancia’s Goiria that was easily stopped by Argentine Quentin Tarantino. They were also close to scoring from a corner kick, only being denied by the goalpost.

As the 94th minute approached and Atlético was desperate for it to end, Perea collided with a Numancia player in the air and a penalty was given for los pajaritos. They of course scored it and just like at Anfield, we were all left in disbelief.

Very dissappointing considering that everyone above us except Real Madrid slipped. We are now 6 points from the next spot (occupied by Sevilla), and could’ve been a 4 point gap if we had won.

Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. Nothing we can really do about it now. The hairs are already pulled from my head, and no use trying to put them back in. All that’s left is to keep on fighting.

This is the third last-minute penalty that we’ve caused so far into the season. Maybe the defense should do something about this recklessness, because these penalties have cost us greatly. Atlético fans will keep on blaming refs for the stupid calls but the team should’ve scored more (and they definitely had their chances) so a silly little penalty couldn’t deny us the full points.

We host PSV on Wednesday, in the presence of no supporters. Ouch.

Aupa Atleti!