Liga – 3rd day: Antoine Griezmann offers victory to Atlético Madrid in Valencia (0-1)

He may not play a lot, Antoine Griezmann was able to be decisive for Atlético Madrid. In Mestalla, the French international scored the only goal of the match against Valencia (0-1), to allow the Colchoneros to carry out a small hold-up, since the locals dominated the game without managing to be dangerous enough . With this second success, the people of Madrid remain three points behind the co-leaders of the championship.

It is a victory typical of the style of play advocated by Diego Simeone, and it is therefore with a big smile that the “Cholo” welcomed the final whistle on Monday. While his team, beaten last week at home by Villarreal (0-2), needed to revive, the Argentine coach saw his team play a bad trick at Ches. This could have happened in the first period, if Alvaro Morata, once again a starter alongside Joao Félix, had been more skilful against the opposing goal.

Simeone, winning changes

With Valencia in control, and Madrid focusing more on staying tightly together in their own half than attacking, the former Juventus player first missed his header from a long free kick at the far post (34′), before seeing Giorgi Mamardashivili win his duel with his left foot (45’+5). The Georgian goalkeeper was also decisive in preventing his team from being surprised by a cannonball from Joao Félix (32nd).

These rather numerous alerts should have worried Gennaro Gattuso’s team, who thought they saw Yunus Musah open the scoring with a perfectly placed missile from 20 meters (23rd), before the referee and the VAR made a false joy throughout the stadium, due to a foul by Mouctar Diakhaby at the start of the action. But when they returned from the locker room, the Murcielagos continued to play without worrying Oblak.

Diego Simeone, he took advantage of the assets that piled up on his bench to finally provoke fate. Entering again in the last half hour of play (64th), Antoine Griezmann, like Thomas Lemar, only needed one action to stand out. Following a recovery from the former Caennais, who served him at the entrance to the surface, the native of Mâcon saw his left shot deflected by Soler beating Mamardashvili (0-1, 66th).