By Sergio Silva
Dec 22, 2024, 05:37 AM EST
Atlético de Madrid won an exciting victory this Saturday against the FC Barcelona (1-2) thanks to a last-minute goal by Alexander Sorloth that leaves the Colchonero team as the only leader of the LaLiga standings at the end of 2024.
Catalans and Madrid arrived at this duel on matchday 18 of the Spanish championship tied with 38 points and with two completely different realities. On the one hand, Hansi Flick’s troop with an irregular rhythm of results and on the other those of ‘Cholo’ Simeone with 11 consecutive victories.
“I am very happy with the result, with the team’s effort. Nobility and humility to suffer and defend a team that plays very well. They were much superior in the first half until the goal, their energy dropped and we began to see that we could compete in the game.”said Simeone after the game.
FC Barcelona began taking control of the scoreboard in Montjuic after the first half hour thanks to a goal from Pedri (m.30) with a spectacular assist from Gavi’s half-roulette. Things were starting well for the culés who have won just one of their last five LaLiga games.
“I’m sad for not winning but I’m happy for Pedri, with Gavi, the passion he brings into the game, and we will work on this next year. We came to this break sad, but we will come back strong”said Hansi Flick, who was not on the bench when he served his last of two sanction dates.
The mattress reaction
With half an hour left in the match, the awakening of Atlético de Madrid began and they managed to level the actions through the Argentine midfielder Rodrigo De Paul (m.60), who caught a rebound on the edge of the area to send a placed shot to the near post and make it 1-1.
“We were able to interpret how the opponent plays, they spend a lot of energy and if the goal doesn’t come, it has happened in other games, we were able to take advantage of the end”analyzed Diego Simeone in the press conference after the match.
Already at the end of the game, in the fourth minute of added time, a mistake by Raphinha led to a lethal counterattack for the Colchonero team that ended up being scored by the Norwegian striker Alexander Sorloth after a pass from the right by the Argentine Nahuel Molina (d. 90+4).
In this way, Atlético de Madrid increased the chain of games won among all competitions to 12 and assumed sole leadership of LaLiga, becoming the winter champion and entering 2025 at the top of the Spanish championship classification.
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