This is the randomness that was flowing through my brain during the match-up with Atletico Madrid. I watched the game on a tiny laptop screen, with my three year old curled up in bed with me at a hotel in Pismo. True love all around. Here we go:
Thank god for Thibaut Courtois’ big ass head.
23rd minute – the ball comes to a wide open Filipe Luis on the left hand side of the penalty box and I literally said out loud, “Oh shit.” Luckily nothing came of it.
Courtois looks better and better with his feet today.
Sometimes you really do just need to boot it the fuck out of there though.
Atleti still plays some incredible defense – we would have had at least one goal against a lesser opponent.
Goddamit Gareth, don’t be hurt.
For a guy who isn’t a giant, Asensio is pretty good at holding things up to buy time for his teammates to catch up on offense.
Courtois is looking more and more confident on the ball even throughout the course of this game.
Great feed from Ceballos to Asensio in the 50th minute to left of goal forcing a save.
Damn Ceballos looks good on the ball. His entrance has made a huge difference.
Kroos standing over afree kick. My brain: “This is it. We score here.” Aaand nope.
Where the fuck is everybody in the box?? I’ve said that at least twice on good crosses across the face of goal.
We look the most dangerous when Asensio is involved. Which, I mean, duh, since he’s a member of the front line and the only one who is even occasionally noticeable.
Chance in 65th and I lost my damn mind, prompting my three year old to ask, “Mama, you OK?”
Goalkeeper heads – you the real MVP.
I know we already knew it, but Varane is such a great insurance plan across that back line.
76th minute – this is better. Just need that final ball. Atleti are well pinned back.
Asensio just doesn’t quite make the right decision at the crucial moment.
And that was really the take-home for me: we created a number of good chances, often involving Asensio, but we lacked that final “dagger ball” in the words of Ray Hudson. It was a much better performance from the collapse against Sevilla, and pretty much everyone looked better than they did in that last game. Ceballos was an absolute revelation when he came on and almost single-handedly tilted the game in our favor during the second half, but Atleti’s steadfast defense required that little extra something in order to break through and we just didn’t have it.
Overall, though, I’m not overly distressed over this draw. Yeah we dropped points, and again when we could have moved ahead of Barça, but this is a historically tough game for us. I know the results haven’t been spectacular the last week or so, but the points we have dropped have all been from understandable sources: away to Athletic Bilbao, at the Sanchez Pizjuan, and home against Atletico. These are all matches one might reasonably expect to present difficulties. Do I wish we had gotten at least one win out of those three? Well, hell yes, but by way of contrast, Barcelona has over that same span dropped points against Girona, bottom-dwellers Leganes, and at home against Athletic. That last one is admittedly considerably tougher than the first two, but my point stands: our loss away to Sevilla represents points I might have expected us to lose anyway. A Barça loss to Leganes? Not so much.
That’s not to say this recent run of form isn’t disappointing. It would have been comforting to get a win from even one of these fixtures, especially as the narrative of Lopetegui being unable to win the tougher matches takes further hold. But I don’t think we have reached all-hands-on-deck levels of concern, especially when we were without two of our most important creative players in Isco and Marcelo for the derby.
With that said, I will be praying the rosario for victories against CSKA Moscow and Alaves this next week, as well as for speedy recoveries for our injured superstars. Because if we don’t get some better results against those teams, it will take more than divine intervention to prevent the alarmists from coming out of the woodwork. Even god knows Real Madrid fans aren’t the forgiving type.
