Valencia Unnecessarily Drops Another Two Points

Based on their records com­ing into this fix­ture, the Valen­cia — Atlético Madrid Sat­ur­day fix­ture did not look to be an appe­tiz­ing match, but know­ing each team’s pen­chant to go for­ward, their stature in Span­ish foot­ball, and their per­for­mances over the past few years, this game was the one to watch, and they did not disappoint.

From the open­ing moments, the pre­dictable and cus­tom­ary cagi­ness that occurs in a big match was absent as both teams looked to score imme­di­ately.  Ser­gio Agüero obliged with a 7th minute goal whose build-up was more impres­sive than the actual fin­ish.  Mak­ing a run on the perime­ter of the penalty area, Jurado took two defend­ers with him and auda­ciously back-heeled a pass to Diego For­lán inside the box.  In plenty of space, For­lán squared a ball to Agüero who fin­ished the attack with aplomb, and it was 0–1 to the visitors.

As is typ­i­cal with this Atlético squad, a one-goal lead was not safe by any means, and Los Che responded with oppor­tu­nity after oppor­tu­nity with­out any tan­gi­ble result to show for them.  Atlético almost made Valen­cia pay for their lack of fin­ish­ing in the 20th minute when Agüero inter­cepted a pass from Alexis at the mid­field line and stormed toward the Valen­cia goal.  Out­pac­ing Alexis, Agüero was one on one with Valen­cia keeper Miguel Angel Moyà, but Agüero took the ball too close to Moyà, and he closed the angle just enough to have his shot roll by the right far post.

In a span of two min­utes, Valen­cia showed why Atlético accu­mu­lated only two points from their first four matches.  In the 25th minute, Éver Banega lofted a ball over the Atlético defense onto Pablo Hernández’s run into the penalty area.  Atlético cap­tain Anto­nio López was able to con­test Pablo in the box, but Pablo’s touches bam­boo­zled López, and Pablo was able to get by him and score from three yards out for the 1–1 equal­izer.  Two min­utes later, Valen­cia would take the one-goal advan­tage when David Silva sprung David Villa open with a cut­ting ball through the heart of the Atlético defense.  Tak­ing a cou­ple of drib­bles into the left side of the box, Villa exe­cuted a clin­i­cal fin­ish that explained why the big Euro­pean clubs clamor for his ser­vices.  As he was about to take the shot, he opened his body as if he were to go for the right far post.  Atlético keeper Roberto, who is dep­u­tiz­ing for Ser­gio Asenjo because of his involve­ment for the Span­ish national team in the U-20 World Cup in Egypt, saw Villa’s body actions and leaned toward that direc­tion.  At the moment of impact, Villa closed his foot, lifted the ball to the near post, and slot­ted it past Roberto; Roberto thought he did every­thing cor­rectly, but the bril­liance of Villa made Roberto’s efforts seem feck­less.  The Atlético Madrid defense was sup­posed to be improved from last year’s for­get­table fifty-seven goal tally, but thir­teen goals in five matches does not bode well for an Atlético side look­ing to keep their Cham­pi­ons League spot for next year.

Through­out the rest of the match, there was always a feel­ing of inevitabil­ity that Valen­cia would con­cede as Atlético pressed for the sec­ond goal.  With a man advan­tage for 65+ min­utes against Sport­ing Gijón last Sun­day, Valen­cia had com­plete con­trol, but a 86th minute goal by Gré­gory ruined their 100% record and made David Villa pub­licly crit­i­cize man­ager Unai Emery’s tac­tics con­cern­ing their play when it was 11 vs. 10.  Both teams equally fought for the next goal, with Villa hit­ting the post from an out­ra­geous jump­ing back-heel in the 53rd minute and a trio of clear-cut goal-scoring prospects missed by For­lán, Cléber San­tana, and Maxi Rodríguez.

In the lat­ter stages of the match, Valen­cia con­tin­ued to play a no holds barred style as they looked to salt the game away with a third goal rather than sit on the 2–1 advan­tage.  While this strat­egy was com­mend­able for its ambi­tion rather than its cyn­i­cism, it left them with holes in the back from time to time, and Atlético cap­i­tal­ized in the sec­ond minute of stop­page time when Maxi scored to gain a valu­able point and a 2–2 draw.  Anto­nio López crossed from the left flank, and Alexis’ header failed to clear the ball towards the mid­field.  Instead, it flicked on to a wide-open Maxi, who was free on the right post to take the shot first time and beat Moyà.  Valen­cia left back Jérémy Math­ieu, who had a solid game before the sec­ond goal, was equally cul­pa­ble as he fell asleep and gave Maxi the space when the ball arrived at his feet.

Usu­ally the match of the week on paper does not ful­fill its promise as such, but Valencia’s 2–2 draw with Atlético Madrid on Sat­ur­day night at the Mestalla proved its worth.  With Los Col­choneros in the rel­e­ga­tion zone because of earn­ing two points out of the first twelve, Valen­cia knew to be wary of Atlético not only because of their attack­ing prowess but also of the wounded ani­mal the­ory.  In short, an ani­mal is most dan­ger­ous when it is hurt because it will fight back with all its might just to sur­vive.  Atlético needed to embrace this atti­tude and that they cer­tainly did; how­ever, Valen­cia had the one-goal advan­tage into stop­page time and looked to win the three points.  Another last stage goal con­ces­sion by Valen­cia leaves them seven points behind Real Madrid and Barcelona, and with no signs of either club slow­ing down, the four points need­lessly dropped against Sport­ing Gijón and Atlético Madrid should prove lethal in Valencia’s attempt to win La Liga for the first time since 2004 and pos­si­bly a Cham­pi­ons League spot.

Tagged as: Alexis, Antonio Lopez, atletico madrid, barcelona, David Silva, David Villa, diego forlan, Ever Banega, La Liga, maxi rodriguez, Miguel Angel Moya, Pablo Hernandez, real madrid, sergio aguero, Sporting Gijón, Unai Emery, valencia