Chapter 337 Victory over the Royal Society in the rain
A few days later, it was time for the weekend league again.
This time Barcelona finally made no mistakes and easily defeated Deportivo La Coruna 2-0 at home with goals from Sanchez and Messi, continuing to catch up with Atletico Madrid.
Real Madrid played an away game against Celta Vigo. Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice to help Real Madrid defeat Celta Vigo 2-1 away from home and consolidate their third place in the standings.
Fourth-placed Málaga was held to a 1-1 draw by Valladolid, but fifth-placed Valencia failed to seize the opportunity in this round and instead lost 0-1 away to Athletic Bilbao.
, not only failed to overtake Malaga, but were overtaken by Real Betis, who won this round, and fell to sixth place. Even the Europa League spot became in danger.
At 22:00 on the evening of March 10, the 27th round of La Liga between Atletico Madrid and Real Sociedad officially started at the Calderon Stadium.
The weather for this game was relatively bad, with heavy rain, so the stadium was naturally unlikely to be full. However, the unprecedented good results of the Sheets this season gave fans hope of winning the La Liga championship again after 17 years.
Therefore, there are more than 50,000 seats, but more than 30,000 people came. Even in the heavy rain, this attendance rate was already quite popular.
Many die-hard fans didn't even bring raincoats or umbrellas, and just waved their fists to cheer for the home team in the heavy rain.
After the game started, Atletico Madrid, which was playing at home, was naturally not polite and attacked aggressively without hesitation.
Real Sociedad, on the other hand, chose a defensive counterattack quite pragmatically.
The venue and sight problems caused by heavy rain ultimately affected Atletico Madrid a lot. In order to prepare for the next Champions League game against Porto, Simeone rotated several positions in this game.
For example, Diego Costa did not start, but sat on the bench.
It happened to be raining heavily. Although Adrian was of good height, his ability to play as a center forward was ultimately a bit poor, and he was unable to complete the task of center forward well.
It wasn't until the 37th minute of the first half that Qiao Anchen received a pass from Alda Turan about 24 meters away from the goal outside the penalty area. He stopped the ball with his chest and shook away the defensive player in front of him. Then he turned around and volleyed the ball.
A heavy shot sent the ball into the upper right corner of Real Sociedad's goal.
Qiao Anchen opened the scoring and gave Atletico Madrid a 1-0 lead.
At the same time, Qiao Anchen also refreshed his La Liga scoring record in consecutive games to 47 games, and exceeded the 60-goal mark in La Liga this season, once again setting a new La Liga single-season personal scoring record.
Qiao Anchen and his teammates celebrated in the heavy rain, and the fans also applauded and cheered loudly for Qiao Anchen in the stands.
The king of Calderon has never let anyone down.
After taking the lead, Atletico Madrid played more calmly. If Real Sociedad is willing to continue to defend and maintain the 1-0 score until the end, Atletico Madrid will not mind.
But they are only one goal behind and are currently ranked 6th in the standings. Real Sociedad, which hopes to compete for a place in next season's Europa League, cannot admit defeat and must fight back to score points.
However, they also knew how powerful Atletico Madrid, especially Qiao Anchen, was, so they did not rashly launch a counterattack. They just attacked tentatively, and immediately returned to defense once the ball was lost, without giving Atletico Madrid a chance to counterattack.
In this way, the 1-0 score was maintained until the end of the first half.
After a 15-minute intermission, the two sides changed sides and fought again in the second half.
The rain did not let up at all, so both sides could only try their best to attack from the air.
In this regard, Qiao Anchen does not have much advantage. Although his height has reached 182cm and his weight has reached 78kg, coupled with the physical confrontation ability brought by his 92 attribute, he is not intimidating even if he is allowed to enter the penalty area.
, but his jumping and heading skills are not good, and he does not have the ability to compete for headers in the penalty area.
Therefore, he can still only take long shots from the outside or pass to teammates.
However, Adrian's offensive power in front of the goal was not good. In the 64th minute, Qiao Anchen finally made an extraordinary performance and passed a good cross ball, which landed just above Adrian's head.
As a result, Adrian's header from 6 meters in front of the goal flew over the crossbar and failed to score.
Falcao is still reliable. Through the assist of full-back Felipe Luis, in the 76th minute, he received a pass from Felipe from the left and jumped high in the penalty area.
Starting from the start, he overpowered Real Sociedad center back Inigo Martinez and headed the ball into the Real Sociedad goal.
Although Falcao is not as tall as Adrian, he is truly a center player and is superior to Adrian in all aspects, including running, jumping, physique, heading skills, etc.
Therefore, after Falcao scored the goal and helped Atletico Madrid seal the victory 2-0, Simeone replaced Falcao with Diego Costa and asked Adrian to withdraw outside the penalty area and play as a left winger.
, let Diego Costa play the center.
Simeone has also made a decision in his mind. If Diego Costa does not play in the future and Adrian and Falcao play together, Falcao will be allowed to play center. Although Adrian is taller, he will still play center.
But he is still suitable for his old position of left and right midfielders, and the center is not suitable for him.
After the authentic Diego Costa came on the scene, Atletico Madrid's offensive power has indeed reached a new level.
In the 86th minute, the starting left-wing back Koke and Adrian hit the wall and then made a pass from the left. Diego Costa faced the two Royal Sociedad center backs Inigo Martine in the penalty area.
Despite the double attack between Si and Mikel Gonzalez, he still jumped high to grab the first point.
However, with his back to the goal at this time, he was no longer suitable for attacking the goal. In addition, seeing Qiao Anchen shake off the defender at lightning speed and cross into the penalty area, Costa did not hesitate and directly passed the ball to Qiao Anchen.
in front of me.
The ball flew over the head of Inigo Martinez and landed on the right rib of the penalty area about 12 meters away from the goal.
Qiao Anchen ran into the right position and without stopping the ball, he directly raised his right foot and fired a volley.
The closer full-back De La Beria rushed over and flew to block the hole of the gun, but still failed to catch up.
Joan Chen's volley ball flew past De La Beria's body like a cannonball, avoiding goalkeeper Bravo who made a hasty save, and flew into the goal against the right post.
In the 86th minute, Qiao Anchen scored another goal and scored twice, helping Atletico Madrid secure a 3-0 victory.
There was no suspense in the rest of the game. Simeone used up all the substitutions. It was not until the last moment of the 92nd minute that Real Sociedad took advantage of the chaos in the penalty area caused by the corner kick attack, and their forward took advantage of the chaos to score a goal.
, save some face.
In the end, Atletico Madrid defeated Real Sociedad 3-1 at home, winning the 27th round of the league and continuing to lead the La Liga standings with a 7-point advantage.