Atletico Madrid’s pre-season tour of the United States has not gone to plan, with the team suffering a 3-0 defeat to Real Sociedad and then a 2-1 loss to Sevilla. The team was also beaten 4-0 by a Paris Saint-Germain side.
Because, in the image and likeness of the rival, Luis Enrique also presented a starting eleven without any reinforcement. The problem is that this PSG team had been crowned champion of Europe just two weeks ago. The players are magnificent individually, but the automatisms are delicious collectively. It was a matter of breaking a sweat and understanding that the superiority was obvious: Julian Alvarez was not far from scoring at the start, with a direct free kick, but the rest of the first act became a massacre. Without, on the other hand, the French team putting special effort into it. That may be the most painful thing…
Simeone had dispensed with a striker while Lucho pulled his, Sorloth was a substitute so that Griezmann could again partner Julian, Goncalo Ramos was the starter (not Barcola) to fill the gap left by Dembele. Looking at the line-ups, in any case, the focus immediately turned to that left side of the red and white defence, which also had the supposed help of Lenglet, another one like that. The first Parisian offensive action was born there, although it went to the other side, but the next one had value goal: absurd loss, combination without opposition, left-footed shot from Fabian from the front.
The man who has won everything showed more hunger than the one who has won nothing, which meant that any loose ball also ended up at the feet of a team better than Atletico in terms of tactics and physicality. Julian saw the game from afar, Griezmann was still the same as in recent months, Giuliano was more concerned with the referee than anything else… shortly after that first goal, the two central defenders that El Cholo had arranged already collected two cards. Everything was bad news, but as far as the scoreboard was concerned there was still a glimmer of hope.
And then, just before the break, Griezmann had something like a chance that ended up in Donnarumma’s hands, if only to justify the Italian’s workload, and the rest of the team lamented what PSG were doing on the counter-attack. Vitinha, yes, Vitinha, once again reached the edge of the area without anyone even bothering to get close to him. Of course he put it in the net and from the supposed equaliser it went to a two-goal advantage. The game seemed to be over before it had even begun.
The second half began with Oblak flying to send Kvaratskhelia’s shot onto the crossbar. The less the Georgian is involved, the better. From the point of view of the chronicler, forced to write such a surname, but especially from the point of view of the opponent, aware that he usually handles himself with evil intentions. Atletico took a step forward, in any case, and could still claim their own with a goal by Julian, but the VAR reviewed a previous foul by Koke with the Romanian referee crazy about music (he received with a card to three of the red and white changes), and the rest became again in the catalog of misfortunes: expulsion of Lenglet, incredible opportunity missed by Sorloth, goal by Mayulu, penalty by Le Normand for the fourth…
If the United States’ idea is to create a love of soccer, they should not count on Atletico Madrid.
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