Atlético Madrid Continues Their Stumbling Start

Ser­gio Agüero and Atlético Madrid can­not see or find their form.

Atlético Madrid pro­longed their fal­ter­ing start with a 1–1 draw against Rac­ing San­tander on Sat­ur­day.  Even with a man advan­tage for the major­ity of the sec­ond half, they lacked the fin­ish­ing touch to nip the win from a feisty San­tander side.  Rac­ing came off a 4–1 drub­bing at El Sar­dinero by Getafe, includ­ing a hat trick by Sol­dado, so Rac­ing did not have the great­est lev­els of con­fi­dence lead­ing into a match against a highly explo­sive offen­sive team.

Atlético had many of its play­ers par­tic­i­pate in the two World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing matches in the pre­vi­ous week­end, so they were not at full strength.  Diego For­lán sat on the bench after play­ing for Uruguay, Simão Sabrosa started but played in Portugal’s two qual­i­fy­ing matches, Maxi Rodríguez was not in the eigh­teen as he picked up a mus­cle strain with Argentina, and Ser­gio Agüero also par­tic­i­pated in the two Argentina matches.  This clash with Rac­ing also com­menced an era with­out John Heitinga, as he made a €7 mil­lion move from Atlético to Ever­ton, and start­ing at right back for Los Col­choneros was Juan Valera, who inter­est­ingly enough played for San­tander on loan last season.

For the first half hour, Atlético had the bet­ter of the play, but both teams were life­less.  Paulo Assunção fizzed a shot past San­tander keeper Toño in the ninth minute but also breezed just wide of the post.  Ser­gio Agüero fired a shot in the 21st minute but headed straight towards Toño and was able to make the save.  Despite Atlético con­trol­ling the ball at a two to one ratio, Rac­ing cre­ated the best chance in the first thirty min­utes as tal­is­man Pedro Muni­tis pro­vided a lovely through ball into the box for Alexan­dre Geijo.  Geijo, how­ever, was caught in between tak­ing the shot and cross­ing the ball back to Muni­tis, and Geijo’s effort flashed across the six-yard box, went wide of the post, and was too far for Muni­tis to get on boot on it.

After this open­ing stanza, Atlético seemed to get their legs under them and began an assault on Toño’s goal.  Simão missed a golden oppor­tu­nity in the 34th minute when he shanked a shot from twelve yards after Agüero slipped in a beau­ti­ful ball into the penalty area.  José Jurado rifled a shot towards Toño’s near post after a quick drib­ble and run in the 38th minute, but Toño par­ried it away suc­cess­fully.  Flo­rent Sinama-Pongolle made a run into the six-yard box, and if it were not for a des­per­ate yet timely chal­lenge by Sepsi Lás­zló, Sinama would have Atlético up 1–0.  With all this attack­ing pres­sure by Atlético, that left gaps in the defen­sive line, and Geijo almost made Atlético pay for their men going for­ward in the 38th minute, but a last ditch slid­ing tackle in the box by Tomáš Ujfaluši took the ball from Geijo’s boot.  Rac­ing made another foray into Atlético’s box in the 41st minute, and Oscar Serrano’s com­bi­na­tion with Manuel Arana sent Arana towards goal, but a kick save by Ser­gio Asenjo stopped the attack.

Atlético finally took advan­tage of a goal-scoring oppor­tu­nity when they scored in the 43rd minute to give the sup­port­ers in the Vicente Calderón some­thing about which to cheer.  Off a cor­ner kick, Rac­ing headed the clear­ance out of the penalty box, but only towards Jurado, and he took the ball first time on the vol­ley and breached the Rac­ing defense and Toño’s goal.  As Atlético is wont to do, they con­ceded a goal within a few min­utes of scor­ing them­selves.  The build-up to Racing’s goal started with a hope­ful long ball into the box for Geijo.  He laid the ball off for Arana who in turn laid the ball off to Ser­rano, and his late run gave him the space to shoot and score.  The Atlético defen­sive pres­sure was lack­ing, and their attempts to stab tackle the ball away from Rac­ing were deemed fruit­less as Rac­ing equal­ized one minute into first half stop­page time.

To jump-start the attack in the sec­ond half, Abel Resino sub­sti­tuted Agüero out for Diego For­lán.  Atlético missed his prowess towards goal as well as his off-the-ball runs, and it was clear that Agüero ran out of steam by the end of the open­ing forty-five min­utes.  When José Ángel Cre­spo received a red card in the 47th minute for ille­gally tack­ling Simão when he had a clear goal-scoring oppor­tu­nity, Atlético’s sec­ond and third goals became inevitable.  These goals never mate­ri­al­ized, as Santander’s defen­sive dis­ci­pline kept Atlético out of their net.  Atlético con­structed some offen­sive attacks but never really put their boots on Racing’s throat when they had the man advan­tage for nearly the whole sec­ond half.  Atlético’s best chance occurred in the 58th minute when Forlán’s swerv­ing free kick hit the post.  Atlético played as though they already had the lead and merely tried to sit on the score line.

After being humil­i­ated by Málaga 3–0 in the open­ing week­end, many expected Atlético to fight back and take out their anger on a San­tander team who were embar­rassed them­selves by Getafe.  At the end of the match, the play­ers were clearly frus­trated, but that frus­tra­tion did not com­pare to Los Col­choneros in the stands, who whis­tled, heck­led, and demanded the imme­di­ate dis­missals of club pres­i­dent Enrique Cerezo and gen­eral man­ager Miguel Ángel Gil Marín.  It may be hyper­bole to talk cri­sis in the south of Madrid, but Atlético’s his­tory shows that this type of sit­u­a­tion is ripe for inter­nal and exter­nal tur­moil.  Soon, the chants for Abel Resino’s head will com­mence and all of this occur­ring when they kept their two stars Ser­gio Agüero and Diego For­lán.  Atlético Madrid has a Cham­pi­ons League group stage match against APOEL Nicosia on Tues­day and then a col­li­sion with La Liga cham­pi­ons Barcelona at the Camp Nou on the week­end.  If they do not beat APOEL and get some sort of result against Barcelona, all hell may break loose within the board­room and the Vicente Calderón.

Tagged as: APOEL Nicosia, argentina, atletico madrid, barcelona, diego forlan, geijo, getafe, jurado, málaga, pedro munitis, racing santander, sergio aguero, simao sabrosa, tono, vicente calderon