Atletico of Madrid suffered a new defeat against a direct rival for a European place at the classification, Real Zaragoza (1-0). The red and white team wasn’t able to take something positive from a spectacular beginning at La Romareda Stadium and ended loosing a good opportunity to overcome Zaragoza at the table and get close to the ‘Champions zone’ of the table. The locals knew how to do it making a Diego Milito’s goal profitable in one of his approaches at Leo Franco’s area.

At the beginning of the match we could see to best Atletico of the entire match in a similar beginning as the one played at Balaidos against Celta. Javier Aguirre’s players were the owners of the ball during the first minutes, with Galletti and Jurado playing at the wings while Fernando Torres and Agüero were trying to score. For ‘Kun’ was the first chance with a shot that left diverted. The second one was for the captain when, after offloading the rival, he couldn’t achieve to connect with Agüero at the last pass.

Zaragoza watched the red and white recital without capacity to impose their law at midfield, where Luccin was the owner of the ball. The surprise came a little after when Zaragoza knew how to make profitable a confusion of the red and white defence in order to inaugurate the scoreboard. Diego Milito was the one who culminated a personal play with a right footed against Leo Franco that couldn’t do anything. It was minute 20 and there was time enough for the reaction. On his side, Real Zaragoza rejected to play the ball and armour-plate his area waiting to make fast breaks. Not many chances had the red and whites to break Zaragoza’s bunker at the rest of the first half, hardly a chance by Fernando Torres after header a foul-kick by Galletti worried Cesar.

The beginning of the second half showed an Atletico determined to cut distances, but was Zaragoza the team that had the first chande with a header by Sergio García at a corner shot. Fernando Torres had two goal occasions: the first one with a header that ended at Cesar’s hands and the second one after culminating a long run by the wing with a pass to the middle of the area but ‘Kun’ couldn’t shoot it by millimetres.

The match became in a return duel with options for both teams, though Atletico was closer to the goal than Zaragoza. Agüero look for the rival goal with a shot from the front and Galletti made the same thing from the right, but in both occasions Cesar blocked the danger. Meanwhile, Zaragoza was sending hard shots, as D’Alessandro’s shot that Leo Franco was able to block.

Javier Aguirre made a change at 73’ Eller instead of Mista, a change with a clear offensive vocation which didn’t result. The constant inexactness at the delivery made the pace of the match go down and that helped Zaragoza to keep the red and white team far away from the area. Until the end of the match only Fernando Marqués worried Cesar with a poisoned shot that left above the crossbar.


Photo: www.clubatleticodemadrid.com