Atlético returns from the dead

Atlético returned from the dead at San Siro and scored in the 96th minute a momentous victory in his fight to put his head in the knockout stages of the Champions League. Despite playing a numerical advantage from minute 28, the team was below the scoreboard until minute 83, when Griezmann he tied a game that already smelled very bad. Luis Suarez ended his curse in this competition by transforming into the discount a penalty caused by Lemar.

Simeone and his players still live on the wire. The extension was again benevolent, but they are very far from the league champion team last season. Milan ruthlessly swept them away until the referee left them with ten players in the 28th minute. Then they dominated, but without effectiveness – the first shot between the three sticks was in the 76th minute – until Griezmann claimed his class with a perfect volley from Lodi. In the final stretch, with the game turned insane, Luis Suárez found the reward that had been denied him all night. The result leaves Atlético with four points in two rounds, fighting Liverpool for second place. The visit to San Siro could end in drama, but it turned into a party. It is now about taking advantage of its shock wave.

Aware of the doubts that his defeat in Vitoria last Saturday had raised at Atlético, Milan touched a fightshock as soon as the ball was in motion and he launched himself with everything upwards subjecting the rojiblancos – blue yesterday – to an absolute siege in search of a goal that would make a difference. Follow it took only a minute to take the ball and cross the field leaving opponents behind, but luckily he appeared Felipe ultimately to prevent him from stepping on the area.

At Atlético the Italian start puzzled him. Simeone resigned from the three centrals to locate Handsome on the left side and thus be able to count on three midfielders and give amplitude of the field to Carrasco. On paper it was a plan conceived to gain control of the game, but in reality it was swallowed up by Lombard pressure. Suarez he was disconnected from the party, Correa just showed up and Kondogbia he lost more balls in the first quarter of an hour than in the first seven days of the league.

The consequences were not long in coming. At 16 minutes Brahim shot at the door for the first time. cloud he pocketed the shot without too much difficulty, but it was only the first warning. Two minutes later Suárez made an unforgivable mistake in the delivery and the counterattack allowed Rebic face Oblak alone. The Slovenian saved a goal that seemed safe, but in the back corner Brahim maneuvered at will in the area and ended up yielding to the Brazilian Rafael Leao, who incomprehensibly only released a crossed right hand to which there was no longer any answer. The 1-0 was the right result to another bad start to the rojiblanco game. One more.

Their appetite momentarily appeased, Milan stepped back for air and Atlético found relief from their suffering for the first time. At 26 minutes, after a corner kick, Luis Suárez opened the visiting hostilities, but his volley lacked the slightest danger. The difference between one and the other was so marked that not a single spectator present at San Siro could imagine another move that was not to increase the domestic advantage.

Then, when the night looked worst, an unexpected outside help arrived. At 28 minutes the Ivorian coast Kessié tripped in the middle of the field Llorente without thinking that he already had a yellow card and the referee, in a surprising decision considering the bar of the competition, He did not hesitate to admonish him a second time and send him to the locker room. All Milan surrounded the Turk Çakir, but the decision was made. With more than an hour of the game ahead, the game took on another dimension.

Pioli he did not take long to react. The Croatian Rebic went to the bench, Tonali he got up to the center of the field and Leao was left alone above. The Brazilian made a scissors shot to the crossbar after a goal kick from his own goalkeeper that the referee canceled for offside, but which served to further intimidate a defense full of doubts. Simeone also moved the deck giving entrance to Joao Felix by Trippier, but the only certain thing is that Atlético went to rest without a single shot between the three sticks and with just one occasion, a volley by Luis Suárez in extra time that did not catch the goal.

Simeone didn’t want to give even the usual ten minutes of courtesy this time. Hermoso and Carrasco no longer returned to the field and entered From Paul and Lodi to shake up the night and take advantage of the numerical advantage. At 49 minutes Kondogbia released a low shot from the edge of the area that lacked aim, but at least He made it clear to Milan that the second half was not going to be the same as the first. Shortly afterwards there was no longer the slightest doubt about the Italian team. Luis Suárez emerged from the penalty spot to head an extraordinary cross by Joao from the right, but to the despair of the Uruguayan the shot went wide.

Seeing the wolf’s ears, Pioli put muscle on the field with Touré and Giraud and he prepared to resist the rojiblanco siege, now constant. Griezmann had another opportunity to redeem himself and on his first ball he put a deep pass to Lodi that was about to end in goal. With Correa, Suárez, Griezmann and Joao in the field should have been enough, but Cholo was not satisfied and spent his last bullet forcing the return of Lemar, which entered through Kondogbia.

The Frenchman was precisely the author of the first rojiblanco shot between the three sticks that arrived no less than in minute 76. Maignan did not have too many difficulties, but it was the prelude to a vibrant final match for Atlético, which he was able to do in the last act everything that he had not been able to complete in the rest of the meeting, first with the draw by Griezmann and then with the 1-2 by Luis Suárez.