Atletico suffered a new setback at home after a 1-1 tie against Mallorca. The match was going in a good way for the red and white team after Fernando Torres inaugurated the scoreboard at 16’, but Mallorca equalized the match starting the second half in one of the occasions that the vermilion team had.

From the first minute of the match Atletico of Madrid fought for the match. The red and white players were looking to break the retaining line that Manzano had prepared with touching on the midfield and looking for speed at the wings with Galletti and Jurado. The locals didn’t take long time to inaugurate the scoreboard, hardly had 15 minutes passed when Jurado sent a pass to the area and found Fernando Torres, that after overcoming to the rival’s defense with speed, faced Moya and scored a goal. It was his ninth goal at the League in the present season.

Having advantage at the scoreboard, the locals relaxed and dedicated the time to manage the ball at the middle waiting for an opportunity to increase differences. The red and white team reached the area but the opportunities didn’t come at any of the two areas, especially at the Atletico’s cause Mallorca team wasn’t getting with danger to Leo Franco’s area. The ball circulation was slow, heavy and was difficult to watch danger action. Jurado tried it at 33’ with a right shot from a pass by Mista that ended rejected on a defender. It didn’t happen anything else at the first half, not much play and a positive balance at the scoreboard for the red and white players.

After the break would come the surprise of the visitant goal. The red and white defense, since then they had worked very well, wasn’t able to prevent that Arango would equalized the match. The tie didn’t felt good to Atletico’s players and Javier Aguirre decided to change the ideas giving entrance to ‘Kun’ Agüero instead of Gabi.

The tactic followed by the Mallorca team was to make pressure at the ball exit to prevent his rival to get into the match based on making a lot of interruptions that ended breaking the match rithm. At 69’ Agüero could have put his team ahead with a header at the area that left deflected. Later Fernando Torres, very active during the entire match, started a play at the area and sent a pass to Kun that hit too strong a header. The match was about that, definitely they ended sharing points; a bad result in spite of Atletico didn’t give away the sixth place in the table and keeps his European place.


Photo: Jose Antonio Garcia Sirvent