La Liga: Atlético 1 – 1 Sevilla

First penalty in 63 games costs Atleti 1st place

Posted by Derek Maaijen on January 19th, 2014 18 Comments

Rakitic equalizes from the spot (MARCA)

Atlético Madrid had the opportunity to go top of the league after Barcelona tied with Getafe on Sunday night.

But two hours after the Catalans finished, the score board of the Vicente Calderón stadium showed the exact same figures as the one in Valencia, as the two league leaders both played to a 1-1 draw.

Atlético had won their first 9 games at home, but have now failed to win in consecutive games.

Everything seemed to be going as planned for Los Rojiblancos after a David Villa goal had given them a deserved first half lead, but a more aggressive Sevilla salvaged a point in the second half.

From the 10th to the 20th minute Atlético created a series of opportunities through Filipe, Diego Costa, Raúl García, Gabi and then Costa again. The striker’s efforts lead to a corner in the 18th minute, which was spilled by goalkeeper Beto after a Godín header. The loose ball fell before the feet of David Villa, who didn’t hesitate to smash the ball into the back of the net. It was El Guaje’s 15th career goal against the Andalucians and a goal which seemed sufficient for Atleti to take 1st place in la Liga.

15 – David Villa has scored 15 goals vs Sevilla, his biggest haul against any Spanish League side. Hangman

— OptaJose (@OptaJose) January 19, 2014

Sevilla did create some opportunities in the first half, but the wrong shooters were pulling the trigger as only their defenders found themselves in a position to score. First right back Coke shot just wide, while centre back Fazio slid the ball wide after Atleti failed to clear a corner.

After the break Sevilla coach Emery brought on forward Gameiro to put more pressure on the Colchonero defence, which led to an early opportunity for Bacca. Despite their intentions, Sevilla hardly caused Atleti any trouble, but Diego Simeone’s men didn’t get near Beto’s goal either.

Diego Costa, who is yet to score in 2014, again didn’t get on the scoresheet. There was one moment where our topscorer brought a cross by Gabi down on his chest, but his spectacular half volley was blocked before it reached the target.

With twenty minutes left to play Raúl García was pulled down inside the box by Navarro, but the referee waved to play on. Then, a few moments later, Hernández Hernández did award a penalty to Sevilla for a naive foul by Juanfran who grabbed Bacca’s shirt. Sevilla’s best man, Ivan Rakitic, stepped up to convert the spot kick and to tie the score at 1-1.

It was only the first time in 63 games that Atleti conceded a penalty, and despite coming close there was nothing Thibaut Courtois could do to stop the Croatian’s strike.

Atleti, who up till that point had seemed tired and not entirely focussed, were left with only a few minutes remaining to reclaim their lead. But Sevilla did well to slow down the game by nagging and annoying Cholo’s men, who hardly threatened Beto’s goal in the final quarter. The mutual frustration reached its boiling point when Alberto Moreno took down Raúl García with a wild challenge from behind, which led to the left back’s expulsion in the first minute of the added time.

Despite being a man down Sevilla held on, winning a point and keeping Atleti from the top spot in la Liga.

Atletico Madrid News 24/7


Atlético	11	Sevilla
David Villa 18'		Rakitic (p.k.) 73'

	Liga BBVA
	Vicente Calderón
	19 January 2014
	21.00 CET

Match Preview

Team Lineups

Courtois

Juanfran

Miranda

Godín

Filipe

Raúl García

Gabi

Koke (88')

Arda

Villa (81')

Diego Costa

Substitutes used

C. Rodríguez (81')

Sosa (88')

Beto

Coke

Facio

Pareja (46')

Navarro

Carriço

Iborra

Vitolo (64')

Rakitic

Moreno

Bacca (84')

Substitutes used

Gameiro (46')

Marin (64')

Reyes (84')

Match Stats

Possession
63	37

Shots
2	3

On Target
16	10

Corners
8	3

Fouls
12	16

Yellow Cards
3	3

Red Cards
0	1

palestine-atletico

I am so sad guys 🙁 mainly coz of the result but also the way they did it. The team was afraid of doing it and be on top.
Plz simeone this season is our chance to win la liga DO IT and dont let real pigs madrid from taking it from us!
EC

Devastated by this result, once again we screw up a chance to go first. Worryingly we have drawn two games in a row at home :(. I candy believe Real Madrid are only 1pt behind us considering how much better we have played than them.

Oh well all that matters in 20 games in we are still 2nd, we need forget the bad performances and results and start opening the gap again.
Zakaria

It’s frustrating, the boys are obviously tired and we have a bench that hardly plays. Where is Toby, where is Joshua, where is Oliver, all these players could help release the pressure on our starters. Sosa isn’t ready yet, but he needs more playing time. Game against Valencia, Barcelona, and now Sevilla same team, one week how could this be right.
Again, the crosses are killing me, crossing all game long, no one is slipping behind the defense, no one is trying to create opening in the defense, no one ever shoots, we haven’t scored any goal from out side the penalty box this year.
I am writing while pissed, but these are questions that really makes me boil, same thing happened in Valencia earlier, score and draw back to defense. Set pieces are not the key to win even if that’s our strength, but we cannot rely on that all the time. When things are bad, we have to think out side the box, and change the game play.
We cannot deny all the success we had, and start bitching, but we Atleti fans are sick and tired of dreaming, hoping, and praying. We deserve to top la liga we have a great team and a great coach, but we want to see more of our bench to Help our starters.
With such performances, we will drop points and will sit on 3rd like last year.
Please get your shit together, we want miracles, we deserve miracles, after all the prayers.
Aupa Atleti
Ahmad Hossainy

I know it’s hard .. but try to relax guys .. and prepare yourselves for more upcoming disappointments

or are they really disappointments ?! .. cause I really don’t think so

I said before that I don’t believe that we can win La Liga this season, or the next one,
maybe after 3 or 4 years .. if we kept the skeleton of the team, the 14 most used players, and if we brought 1 or 2 big names every season

I’m not a loser .. I’m not unfaithful .. I’m just realistic

we still lack many things,
we need strong bench .. yes, we have a stronger one than last season, but it still much less than Real’s and Barca’s
we need experience,
we need to learn how to handle the pressure (something I talked about even before Barca game)
we need to learn how to play against teams that park the bus, which will happen from now on

except Villa, Cebolla and Godin, our players never won major trophies like The World Cup, The Euro, Copa America, La Liga and UCL

Juanfran’s penalty tonight was a very obvious example about lacking experience and about losing concentration and making mistakes under the pressure

before Juanfran’s stupid penalty, Atleti played 63 games, 5747 minutes, without conceding a penalty in La Liga (since April 11th 2012, vs Real Madrid)

Just Relax …
We still co-leaders, our goal was to qualify to UCL, and with 51 points in 20 games, I believe we already reached that goal
we must not get obsessed with wining La Liga, we just have to try to stay close, to take it game by game and see what will happen
Real & Barca are the ones who should be under the pressure .. not us
They are the ones who bought one player with 100 million and 57 million respectively
(until the court tells us how much did they really paid for him)

But still, Simeone has a lot of work to do
He has firstly (and obviously) to work on the psychological side of the players
He has to be brave in rotations, he has to trust the subs, especially Oliver and Guilavogui, because Koke as a DM is not working .. he must have faith in them or he could lose every thing
in 17 days we played 5 very tough games against Malaga, Valencia, Barca, Valencia & Sevilla
then next Thursday will face Athletic, then Rayo on Sunday, then Athletic on Wednesday, then Sociedad on Sunday ..
and go on that way until the end of the season
yes, every body knows that we are the fittest side in Spain -thanks to Profe Ortega- but the players are still humans

The players, the fans, the coaching staff, the board .. everybody have to prepare themselves for ending this season trophyless .. and that actually won’t be a disaster
The real disaster is selling our players at the end of the season and burying our project while it still on its crib
But I don’t think that’s going to happen
Few days ago, I read an interview with Andrea Berta, our Italian technical director in which he said :
“Atleti will keep their players for at least another season, no body is leaving next June, not Diego Costa, not any other player”
Also I read that, for the 2nd time this season, Atleti raised Koke’s buy-out clause, and now it’s 60 million

So .. Cheer up guys ..
We are still co-leaders of a league that have Messi & Neymar, Xavi & Iniesta, Ronaldo & Bale, Alonso & Modrić
We have 51 points out of 60 possible
we are in the last 8 of the Cup
We are in the last 16 in The Champions league

We are on the right way ..

Everybody have to relax .. especially the players
Paulo

Exhausting match… So heated, a familiar feeling kept creeping up my spine. PUTA SEVILLA!
urban

This draw is Cholo’s fault. Dont get me wrong I love the guy and I know we all owe him and this doesnt change the general opinion but frankly speaking it was Cholos mistakes that cost us the game.

1) he does not rotate when the team clearly needs it
2) he was clueless when in the second half Sevilla started to dominate and we needed to adjust the tactic, he had no idea how to turn things around and he didnt even try, he did nothing just stood there when Emery was making changes and shouting like a wild man to his players
3) our substitutions were too late and in my opinion misjudged, when we needed to score he changed villa while it was Costa who didnt seem to be a threat to Sevilla’s goal the entire evening, and he let Cebolla in who is good in counter attacks when we are winning and the other team has to take the risk… he is not that good when we need to play short passes in tight spaces, Adrian or Oli would be better, or Sosa should get some more minutes
4) he still did not come up with clear idea how to break up defences in positional attack, and now almost everyone plays against us defensively

I mean this game could be a great lesson for us. Cholo has to focus in traning on braking tight defences. Our forwards can practice this each training with the best defenders in Europe and we should take advantage of that.
kris

Ahmad, but what is sad is that none of the other players except the regular starters have Simeone’s trust, as it seems. If he trusted them, he would be playing them giving the starters a chance to rest every now and then. Like you said, these players are just humans. Simeone knew all along that Koke wouldn’t work as a DM, but decided to keep him there for some odd reasons. Guilavogui would have been perfect starter for this match today as he is hungry to play and has the physical attributes needed to be a great defensive midfielder, but nope. And if you still don’t believe we can win the La Liga then I say you are wrong because we had the perfect chance today to go up top but we shat ourselves and conceded such a stupid penalty. I don’t even care for the penalty, the way we decided to sit back instead of going for it like what a top team does,, that’s just pathetic and sad. We scored one goal. We could have scored FOUR MORE had we tried. WE HAVE THE PLAYERS needed just for that! Simeone values defense but doesn’t let the offense do their thing. We are at home, attack, attack, defend, defend. Attack just as much as you defend. Remember in the first 25 minutes we were just doing our thing and we looked far more superior to Sevilla. We should have kept that up and we could have scored at least three more goals. I know football is a tactical game and it can’t be won just by one tactic but this game could have easily been by just one tactic. AND PLEASE CHOLO, utilize your subs!! What are subs for if you bring them on in the last 10 minutes? Oh well, in Cholo we trust.
Ahmad Hossainy

a great lesson indeed
and as we Arabs say when something bad happens :
you don’t know .. maybe it’s for your own good

Juanfran is a great player, but lately, he is not that Juanfran we know
he made two mistakes that cost us 4 points, tonight’s penalty, and the own goal vs Villareal

maybe it’s a good thing that he picked up his 5th yellow .. he totally needs some rest
and now Simeone will be forced to play Manquillo, who many fans believe (and I’m one of them) is at the same level as Juanfran

I think he should play not just vs Rayo next Sunday, but also vs Athletic in the cup this Thursday

Just as I said above, and just like URBAN said, El Cholo must rotate

He had to .. he is forced to .. he dosen’t have a choice
Ahmad Hossainy

@Kris, yeah .. I still believe we can’t win La Liga this season
I think it’s going to Real Madrid ..
I’m sorry, but they have the best squad in Spain, maybe in Europe,
they just need to be a “team” .. not just a bunch of great players, and with Ancelotti, they are getting there

I said before that Simeone chess board lacks one piece, a world-class playmaker, someone like Juan Mata
and if got him in winter, we “maybe” will have a chance to win the title
but we didn’t get that piece .. instead, we got Sosa

we already have been suffering to win games in the first round, and many of our wins were with close scores :
2-1 vs Sociedad
2-1 vs Osasuna
2-1 vs Celta Vigo
2-1 vs Granada
3-2 vs Levante
1-0 vs Malaga

Every week we were talking about lacking creativity, about our need to a playmaker
That was in the first round, so what about the second one which is (in all leagues, not just in Spain) much more difficult, complicated and exhausting
where every team is looking either for a place in Europe, or a place in La Liga next season

before the season started, I expected us to reach 80 points
now I think we can reach 90 .. which will be a marvelous accomplishment, an Atleti record, a number that no other team in any other league in the world will reach this season
but we all know that it will not be enough to win the title .. even 100 could not be enough this season
and right now, we are not that team who can reach 100 points .. not yet

but 90 points will be enough for me .. and should be enough for all the fans, and for the team
it should be another brick to put on the project we are building, which -again- I believe it will be completed in 3 years,
if we didn’t tear it down with our own hands !

That’s what we really should worry about
farhan

i think from now villa needs to play all and full 90 min games .. he already prove he can change the result on his own in last minutes …he always keeps trying and plag aggressive when he needs to play.
now coasta needs some rest..i think
Silchas

Even Barca and Real can’t won every game, so you think we can? Some of you guys must stop dreaming about the LaLiga-title. Sp what we played not so good as usual but if the ref hdn’t give Sevilla that flattering penalty, our effort would be enough. I can blame the team that they didn’t play 100% because we have a Copa match at thursday.
Alltough there is one good thing only juanfran will miss the next match in the league. ^^
AaX

Because of the kind of manager like Simeone who doesn’t gamble and trust to a consistent stable first eleven that currently Atletico is having a rare but deserved luxury of feeling more comfortable and confident coming into each match. But Atletico is just not a ‘normal’ club. We must expect and prepare that the next project is to improve and expand our currently one dimensional to Varieties of Controlled and Sharp Attacking Plays while at the same time remaining strong and solid at the back. It won’t just happen overnight but effort must be started. It is also true that we deserve to be to on top of La Liga today if the original objective which is winning against a visiting team we achieved. In Cholo’s words “We have to try to resolve the details better in the second round because teams DO NOT TRY TO PLAY WELL, they are trying to get points,” he said. But we should at least scored another goal to then try to play well instead of settling for a 1-0 win although more than capable to get a 2-0 lead. We paid and we have to learn our mistakes so to avoid any more further on. CALDERON IS THE KEY THIS YEAR, GOD WILLING.
ali_

i think that the succes and our current positions made some of you guys forgot that we CANT COMPETE with barca & real. im totally with ahmad.
right now we are overachieving. we are not on their level, cos if we would be, some of our players would have scored a late goal and we would have win this match.
anyway, sevilla (with valencia) has seriously the most disgusting players in la liga. what the fuck did they celebrated at the end of the match? they celebrated like they won a cup. i think they really liked the fact that they could prevent us to be nr.1. fuckin disgusting morons. they are just pathetic.
pantic#10

THE DAY AFTER.
i’m a little bit more relaxed (more or less…) 🙂
well…
It’s a draw.
a DRAW. we didn’t lose. still undefeated at Cholo Castle.
Sevilla is strong, strong coach, strong players, a couple os stars like Marin and Rakitic…
It’s not bad a draw against them…it’s only happened in the wrong moment.
but
We’re still at the top, with Barca and right before Real Madrid. fighting for La Liga.
It’s only the first match of the 2nd half of the season.

We’re a little bit tired. maybe Koke most of them. Diego Costa needs some rest too. or some good assists by Koke. the two are connected.
Yesterday the biggest mistake was done by Cholo and not Juanfran.
this was a match for Guilavogui. and not koke in that position.
Josuha has the trust of all of us, here on Atletifans…but not from Cholo.

and again Cebolla in the last minutes.
He plays only 5 or 10 minutes here and there…
Please sell him and start to use Oliver, Manquillo and the other talents..
i prefer to see Manquillo as a wing attacker instead Cebolla, we could have done better with him and juanfran together on the right (or Adrian).

and now Bilbao. we can reach semi-finals. hope to see a fresh team with changes: Insua, Manquillo, Guilavogui, Toby, Adrian, Sosa.
Jeronamo

Even when we were winning I posed questions about the lack of usage of players like oli and josuha and I also talked about cholo’s mistakes in subs. I told you guys not to let victories cloud your judgement but whatever. I hope cholo sees and learns from these mistakes and we grow stronger and better in our upcoming games.
kris

LOL sorry for being so pissed yesterday. We are actually used to these kind of things every year. And like Ahmad said, maybe it is for the better. But if you still don’t believe we can win the La Liga title which we have had the chance to go up top of the table twice this season and both times we just choked and got the same results as Barca for some odd reason, then you are not really as optimistic of an Atleti fan. Lol. We dream so much it’s unbelievable!!
piserakos

All I wanted to say is allready mention:P
Anyway I would say my opinion about something….. I’m sure that if Barca had won and we had that draw we wouldn’t be that sad….. Also I would remind you the word of Cholo after the game against Malaga “let’s hope Barca will win so we will play against them at the position we used to be and we play so good when we are at this (2nd)”
Adnan Khan

i agree with you Kris. We can win la liga, and i am being realistic now.