The consolation of Barça and Atlético

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Modric, before Griezmann and Llorente. AFP7 via Europa Press (Europa Press)

The great rivals of Real Madrid have been in such a slipstream all year, that while the whites have uncorked the League and have the European Cup within their reach, the apotheosis of Barça and Atlético has gone through enrolling in the Champions League.

Big game versus small game.

Barça admits it and Atlético wants to hide it, but it is a real death for both.

There was no pulse to a Real Madrid that, contrary to its European version, had nothing to come back in the League since nobody disputed its authority from the beginning.

It didn't matter that he had no catwalk signings, that he should alleviate the departure of his Praetorian pair of central defenders (Ramos-Varane), that few trusted Ancelotti's second half or that Bale and Hazard were Bale and Hazard again.

The Real shook off all suspicions,

ATM Athletic

one

Oblak, Vrsaljko, Savic, Giménez, Reinildo Mandava (Felipe Monteiro, min. 72), Marcos Llorente, Kondogbia, Koke, Carrasco (Renan Augusto, min. 93), Correa (Griezmann, min. 45) and Matheus Cunha (De Paul , minute 88)

RMA Real Madrid

0

Andriy Lunin, Lucas Vázquez, Jesús Vallejo, Eder Militao (Ferland Mendy, min. 67), Nacho, Kroos (Modric, min. 67), Casemiro (Vinicius Junior, min. 60), Camavinga, Jovic (Federico Valverde, min. 60), Rodrygo and Marco Asensio

Goals

1-0 min.

39: Aleppo.

Referee

César Soto Grado

Yellow cards Jovic (min. 19), Lucas Vázquez (min. 27), Marcos Llorente (min. 36), Jesús Vallejo (min. 37), Savic (min. 62) and Nacho (min. 70)

They maintain at the Camp Nou that the traveling Barça team arrived late for the season.

Who knows what would have happened not only with Xavi, but with a summer preview of the winter signings.

In football all assumptions fit, but it is hard to believe that whoever was already reinforced derailed in the Europa League, where the opening act of the hierarchical Champions transits, would have competed with bone in a long-distance battle.

Not only in a punctual like his celebrated classic in Chamartín.

While Barça consoles itself, even at the cost of denying the totemic figure of Koeman, Atlético will cling to its usual alibi: Madrid and Barça put the roof on them.

It doesn't strain.

He left as champion, with loud sounds like Griezmann's and with the messianic Simeone as the eternal motto.

This time there was no compromise of other campaigns.

A lot of good squad, but Atlético did not have a label.

Neither an expansive team nor a results reader.

In his search to be something more than what he was, he came to nothing.

In the capsizing he went for the direct one and very soon he put on the most

but he felt as rickety as others.

Before the neighbor, Simeone moved the tree again.

He did it in a derby in which, with a massive line-up and Liverpool in sight, it seemed that Real were the ones who were playing the European beans.

With Modric, Benzema and Vinicius and a few more starters in the shadows, an erratic Madrid, with no other urgency than to finish the duel all healthy, had him in anguish.

Logical.

This Real is capable of winning even unintentionally.

Everything costs Atlético a world.

Even scoring more than one goal against the recruit Lunin.

Occasions were not lacking.

But Simeone's team has been so unrecognizable throughout the course that he defended worse than ever and, out of habit, when he was able to overwhelm an opponent pending other tasks, he felt strange.

He forgave him so much that Asensio and Nacho almost made him bitter at the end.

It is already known that it would have only been another vulgar Madridista miracle.

Having fulfilled their afflictive objectives, Barça and Atlético —who have it in hand— require a couch to ponder their future.

The victorious Royal has no time.

His is the present.

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