By European Football
September 18 2005

Real Madrid lost yet again 1-0 to Espanyol in another awful performance, while Atlético beat Barsa 2-1 with justice. The most important teams in Spain can’t find their form, and while Barsa has recently found some trouble in the league, Real is sunk into a heavy crisis. Espanyol received a very weakened Real Madrid, that has now lost 3 matches in a row this week. In a dense match in which Iván De La Peña came out as the outstanding man, Barcelona’s neighbours managed to control the ‘Galácticos’, which were once again nowhere to be found.

The local team was safe in defense, but were clumsy with the ball and, excluding De La Peña, showed poor technique and inaccurate passing. It was the little bald headed man who all by himself managed to put Madrid into trouble and if his team ever followed his moves, the score would have been bigger. Defensively, the team responded well.

Luxemburgo made only one change in the lineup that faced Lyon: Gravesen stayed in the bench and Ronaldo came in. Beckham was moved to the middle, were he looked disorientated and only secured possession passing to the sides, next to Pablo García, while Baptista and Raúl, two natural strikers, played in the hole and were supposed to be creative. Robinho had to pull back a lot and any of his quick amazing dribbles were hardly seen.

During most of the match, Madrid went forwards in an anarchic way, lacking ideas, and few connections between the players were made. They did shoot often, but mostly from long range and well wide, and ‘keeper Carlos Kameni showed just how safe he is. Espanyol waited for their chances on the counterattack, but forwards Corominas and Luis García were having a bad day.

The goal came in the minute 68 with a referee’s mistake. Jarque headed home a cross coming from a free kick in the right, but as the ball was flying, Sergio Ramos was fouling his mark, Lopo. The referee blew his whistle at the sight of this, and players were distracted, so right after Jarque had scored, no one knew if it was valid. The ref decided not to award the penalty he had seen and said the goal was good.

Then, some violence and tension got hold of the players. Sergio Ramos saw a second yellow card and was sent off in his second match as a starter. There were more yellow cards, but in the 93rd minute, Baptista slid violently into Jonathan and got a red card which must keep him out of the fields for at least two matches.

On the other side, the other Madrid team defeated Barcelona 2-1. Eto’o scored within only 5 minutes played, after a low Giuly cross from the right, and during those first moments, Atlético’s defense looked weak. But Bianchi’s team had man-of-the-match Petrov playing on the left, and Oleguer and Márquez could never stop him. After a long run down the left, Torres headed his cross and tequalized in the minute 17. The rest of the first half was entertaining, but both teams consolidated and strengthened their defenses.

In the first offensive movement of the second half, Kezman forced a corner kick, this one was half-cleared, the rebound fell for Atlético and Kezman scored from short range. After that, Barcelona intended to go forwards as Atlético tried to stop them, and were successful. In the minute 67, Pablo Ibañez was sent off for a dubious foul in, but he was the last man, and from then on, Atlético only defended and didn’t even tried to keep the ball.

Barcelona lacked ideas, its stars were not sharp in the last quarter of the field, and in the end Atlético celebrated a well-fought victory, while Barcelona must work harder to find answers.

In other highlights in Spain this weekend, Getafe have reached the top after defeating Alavés as visitors 3-4 in a weird match, with two penalties and many defensive mistakes. Also, Mallorca recovered from being 1-2 in the second half against Real Sociedad and came out victorious, 5-2, with a great performance by Venezuelan forward Juan Arango, who scored a hattrick.