Atlético Madrid overwhelm Real to show they will battle to keep title

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/07/atletico-madrid-real-madrid-la-liga-match-report

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Diego Simeone summed it up. “Brilliant,” the Atlético Madrid coach said, and brilliant his team had been. So good that, 10 minutes after the final whistle, they were back by popular demand, returning to the pitch to be given another ovation after a stunning 4-0 victory over rivals Real Madrid. There were goals from Tiago, Saúl Ñiguez, Antoine Griezmann and Mario Mandzukic, and there could have been more. “They were better than us in everything,” Carlo Ancelotti admitted, “we weren’t in the game.”

As the final minutes ticked away, a Mexican wave went round the stands and the ball went round the pitch, from one Atlético player to the next. Those Real players who bothered chasing the ball – and not all of them did – did so in vain. They were defeated and had been so for more than an hour. “This was the worst Real have played since I have been on the bench,” Ancelotti said.

Simeone would not say so but this may have been the best that Atlético have played since he took over and changed their identity for ever. Unable to beat Real in 14 years and 25 games, power has shifted. Atlético are unbeaten in six derbies this season, winning four of them, but none were quite like this.

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Real were taken apart by the league champions, who are not yet ready to relinquish the title. Defeat would have put Atlético 10 points behind. Instead, they put Real to the sword, completing a first league double since 1951. “We’re still top, but we can’t lose 4-0 to anyone,” Cristiano Ronaldo said.

That, though, is exactly what they had done. Atlético had taken the lead after 13 minutes. Juanfran’s deep cross was flicked on and, arching backwards, Mandzukic expertly brought the ball down on his chest and laid it into the path of Tiago. His shot slipped into the net between Iker Casillas’s right hand and his right knee.

The keeper screamed “God!” Behind him, the Atlético fans mocked: “Iker! Iker! Iker!” – and, four minutes later, they were doing it again. Guilherme Siqueira raced the length of the left wing, untracked and unchecked, and chipped towards Saúl. On for the injured Koke after just nine minutes, Saúl leapt to produce a wonderful overhead kick that went in off the post.

Griezmann and Mandzukic were tearing into Real. Atlético dominated, stepping out with clarity and often with class. The workrate and intensity that defines them was absent on the other side. Only the boos that accompanied Ronaldo prevented him from being entirely anonymous and, if he was seen little, Gareth Bale was seen less. At the back, they were weak and exposed. In the middle, there was too much ground to cover and too few men to do so.

Overrun, Real produced nothing and barely even saw the ball until Toni Kroos briefly flickered into life before half-time, which eventually came without a single chance for the visitors. None followed in the second half, either.

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“We have to make sure that nothing like this happens again,” Ancelotti said. “We haven’t got a [single] player who played well.”

Atlético dominated and more goals might have followed more quickly than they eventually did. Griezmann had the ball in the net, but was pulled back for an offside decision that was extremely close, while Sami Khedira stopped another shot with his hand.

Ancelotti sent on Jesé at half-time but things got worse, not better. When Ronaldo’s shot, from 20 yards out, dribbled apologetically wide in the 62nd minute, laughed at by the fans, it was his and Real’s first, while Atlético’s totals were rising. “Olés” went round and they had been earned. The touch, particularly from Arda Turan, was often breathtaking and Real seemed incapable of comprehending what was going on.

Griezmann had three opportunities in as many minutes and, soon afterwards, Tiago headed into the ground from six yards out. That should have ended it but Griezmann eventually did, nudging over the line after Saúl had headed Turan’s perfect pass across the face of the goal. That was in the 66th minute and there was still time for one more. Fernando Torres, on as a sub, delivered the cross from which Mandzukic dived to head in a brilliant fourth for a brilliant team.