The National Championship League 06/07 began well for Fernando Torres and Atletico. The forward scored his first goal of the season at 11’ of the Racing-Atletico of Madrid match, and the team adds three points on its start at Sardinero (0-1). The red and white victory breaks the statistic because, since 1989, Atletico didn’t start the season with a triumph far from Manzanares.

Fernando proved in his start to be in a good physical shape. Besides scoring a goal, he was very participative and he did a hard-work, both in offense and in the defense, and he made dangerous diagonals and moves in both sides, especially at the right. The numerical inferiority after one Seitaridis’ sending off made Torres be more involved at defense.

The first chance for Javier Aguirre’s players was for Jurado, five minutes after the match started, when he made a foul kick. Immediately was Petrov’s turn that, getting the most of an intelligent pass from Torres, stood up alone in front of Toño, and if it wouldn’t have been for the goalkeeper’s intervention he would have scored the first one of the night. Even so, they didn’t take too long to score. It was at 11’ when Torres, after a combination with Mista, scored the first and last goal of the match with a double shot. The goalkeeper from Cantabria blocked the shot at a first chance, but the ‘9’ was keeping an eye and sent the reject to the bottom of the net. Shortly after the captain was very close to score the second one, when he sent a poison ball that Toño blocked.

The local team took long to get close with danger to the red and white area, and when they did it was for three times: Oriol tried a header at 22’, Munitis shortly after and finally Juanjo at 26’ sent the ball to the cross bar. The pace of the play went down and both teams didn’t found the right communication to get to the rival’s area. Only a distant shot by Colsa, now playing for Racing, sketched danger. The bad news for Atletico came on the edge of the break, when Seitaridis saw the red card as a consequence of a hard tackle to Melo.

The second half of the match brought news to the red and white team, consequence of the numerical inferiority. Aguirre entered Valera for Petrov to to make up the absence of the Greek player, and also Gabi entered on the field replacing Jurado. While Atletico fixed their rows, the local team could tie by a header from the small area, if it wouldn’t have been for Leo Franco’s intervention who safe the points at several times.

Fifteen minutes for the end of the match Torres tried the second one with a shot from the right side of the area, after receiving a good pass by Aguero, but Toño covered very well his goal and prevented the score. At the final straight of the match Racing put more effort into it and the red and white suffered to keep their goal to zero. One more time Leo Franco was outstanding on his work, saving the victory in a double intervention when the match was getting to the end. First match, first victory for Atletico that gets off to their way with a good start at the present edition of the League.


Technical details:

Atlético of Madrid: Leo Franco; Seitaridis, Pablo, Perea, Antonio López; Jurado (Gabi, 45’), Luccin, Costinha; Petrov (Valera, 45’), Mista (Agüero, 68’) and Fernando Torres.

Racing of Santander: Toño; Pinillos, Oriol, Alfaro, Luis Fernandez; Cristian Alvarez (Balboa, 64’), Colsa, Vitolo, Melo (Momo, 85’); Munitis and Juanjo (Aganzo, 69’).

Referee: Iturralde González showed a red card to Seitaridis (44’) and yellow cards to Luccin (43’), Pablo (58’), Costinha (71’), Gabi (84’); Pablo Alfaro (30’) and Melo (45’).

Goals: 0-1 (11’). Fernando Torres, after a move with Mista, scores from the small area taking advantage of a reject.


Photo: J. A. Sirvent