Bookend Goals Help Merengues In Derbi

Who ever thought that in the first and last minute Real Madrid would fur­ther sink Atlético into deeper prob­lems after a heated Madrid derby.  With only 35 sec­onds gone by in the match Ruud Van Nis­tel­rooy smacked a shot from 25 yards out to beat Leo Franco on the left post.

Over­all the match was not full the typ­i­cal action that you would think in a derby.  Atletico would have the lion´s share of the pos­ses­sion, but the Col­choneros  lacked ideas in three quar­ters of the pitch.  Des­per­ate crosses and for­wards get­ting the ball with their backs behind the goal led to fairly easy defense by Real Madrid.  The Merengues were able to coun­ter­at­tack effec­tively and the home­side was helped out by Leo Franco on quite a few efforts on goal.

The more des­per­ate Atlético got, the worse the sit­u­a­tion got.  There were shots fly­ing all up into the stands where they were no threat fro Iker Casil­las.  As time ticked away Atlético´s orga­niz­tion up front dis­ap­peared.  Diego Forlán´s  and Ser­gio Agüero´s shots were wide, and that was the least of their wor­ries.  They had to bat­tle against seven play­ers in order to get a shot on goal.  Atlético would lose Luis Ama­ranto Perea after he swung at Wes­ley Sneijder´s face and con­nected in the 30th minute.  There was no need to repu­di­ate ref­eree Clos Pérez´ deci­sion as the obvi­ous call fur­ther sunk Atlético.   They would get a reprieve of sorts when Van Nis­tel­rooy would be given his march­ing orders after a ques­tion­able late ¨chal­lenge¨ in the 39th minute against a div­ing Maniche; but this was not an excuse for the poor level of play.  Real Madrid had more threat­en­ing chances on the Atlético goal

Then Aguirre saw the light.

Por­tugues inter­na­tional Simao came in and gave the Col­choneros another avenue to attack.  He gave Ser­gio Ramos a hard time on the left wing and gave a touch more space for Agüero to move around.  All of a sud­den he was the man giv­ing the team a var­i­ous num­ber of set pieces on the left side.   But the most impor­tant set piece of the match was yet to come.  Off a foul on Ser­gio Agüero, Simao would find a crack in the wall and put it past a help­less Iker Casil­las to equal­izer the match at the end of the 90 min­utes.  There was sheer pan­de­mo­nium at the Vicente Calderón as they would be able to get at least a point out of this night­mar­ish game that saw them take steps side­ways instead of for­wards.  Despite the bat­tling and obsta­cles they had to endure this was a just result.

Unbe­knownst to the home side they still had yet one more bul­let in their cham­ber.  That one they would use to shoot them­selves in the foot with.

If Simao was the bril­liant sub of the game for Aguirre, Roys­ton Dren­the was Bernd Schuster´s.   The Dutch­man sub­sti­tuted Raúl and imme­di­ately became the dif­fer­ence maker.   In the over­all look of the things, he was the game maker.   After the Clos Pérez gave six min­utes due him hav­ing to be treated for cramps, Madrid would fin­ish a game in typ­i­cal Merengue fash­ion.  Madrid began to pres­sure the Atlético half of the field and even­tu­ally Dren­the would be faced in a man-to-man sit­u­a­tion against Jan Heitinga just inside the 18 yards box.  a quick feint and mov towards the line saw Heitinga stick out his leg and clip Drenthe´s thigh.   Clos Pérez was just steps from the action and called a penalty kick.  Gon­zalo Higuaín cashed in and helped Madrid stretch their unbeaten streak against the cross-town rivals to 14 matches.

Their win placed Madrid in sec­ond place in the stand­ings with 16 points behind Vil­lar­real who drew with Espanyol at the Mon­tjuic later in the evening.  For Atlético, it will be yet another few months until they will be able exor­cise this jinx at the San­ti­ago Bern­abéu.  No rest for the weary now as they will have  a big mid­week Cham­pi­ons League match against Liv­er­pool (sans Fer­nando Tor­res) at home after their sta­dium ban was lifted.

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