Atleti, launched; Zorrilla cries

Simeone has pressed the key. His players, three months later, have hit it off. The new ones, the signings. His team is already Atleti that plays like the one that spent 185 million in the summer to look at everything in the face. In Valladolid they came out knowing that Barcelona had lost and were only two points away, with the Montjuïc match pushing their legs, although there are still two weeks to go. Your candidacy for the League is there.

And Cholo's men came out, at the beginning, more with their heads, to say the least, than with their bodies, because they were not present. An Atleti that was Prague plus Griezmann, who had the first chance of the game although his team had come out colder than the night itself in Valladolid. A Valladolid that came out pressured by its classification, bottom, and with Comert as the third center back and Amallah in the middle. An Amallah that barely lasted on the field: after ten minutes he fell to the grass with a muscle bite. Pezzolano, who directed from the box, until now felt that his team was facing Atleti trying to surprise with recoveries in the opposite field.

But Amallah left and Atleti settled in their field, dominating but without chances. But just barely.

The game was like cement gum, difficult to chew. Slow and sluggish, imprecise, as if Atleti had forgotten for a while that this was a League match. Against a Valladolid that played for life and continued doing its thing: surviving is resisting. Until Llorente I say enough is enough. Because this is, above all, an Atleti that believes. And play for it.

Knife on the right, with Giuliano in front, Llorente breathed Zorrilla and remembered 2021. That League that ended in this parking lot, hugging a fan when hugs were prohibited. The one in which he was so important.

Grizi took the corner and the ball ended up in Julián, who looked for the 14th. The last center, right in the heart of the area, was headed by Lenglet without opposition. We insist: does anyone remember Hancko today?

Atleti had smelled blood and rushed headlong into a team that, at the first blow, remained on the canvas. Pezzolano's team had not recovered from Amallah's injury. The frost that fell on Valladolid at that time was a blow to the footballers of the team led by Ronaldo Nazario. The chants were already filling the stands while Atlético put its fingers into the wound to make it bigger. Unbearable.

He had opened Hein's door and stayed in his area to live, perched on the legs of his full-backs. If Giuliano had a goal taken off the scoreboard due to offside, Atleti immediately returned to stop him from leaving. There was the little Simeone again, playing. The next time he appeared in the area he looked for Griezmann who ran into Hein, but the rebound fell to La Araña who continued to bite. 0-2. The 0-3 would come just four minutes later after a race of faith from Galán, that Extremaduran who was born to play with Cholo although it took the Argentine a season to discover it. Combination with Julián, Grizi lets her pass and De Paul impales her. When Giménez scored offside again on the stroke of half-time, a handful of Valladolid fans went home, fed up with so much embarrassment. His team smells like Second since the season began. Without anyone, it seems, at the wheel.

After the break, everything remained the same. Atleti hitting that bag of bones that is Valladolid, which lacks soul and football. Giuliano ran because he doesn't know how to do anything other than that, fill every blade of sweat with sweat, he found Grizi on the front, a wall with Julián and the ball that returned to the best French footballer of recent years so that he could shine: he received with his back turned, controlled heel and overtook Hein as he turned around. If football were fair, it would already be the Puskas Award. But the thing is that if football were, at home he would have a Ballon d'Or (the one from 2018). You don't need to eat at anyone's table, yours is your own. The game was over, although the changes came, Iván Sánchez hit the crossbar, Grizi was applauded and Sorloth closed the party in Zorrilla. Valladolid was left chewing nails, and Atleti was left staring at everything, as one dreamed of in summer.

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