Again Luis Suárez was in charge of Atlético giving another bite to the League. With one game less, the advantage with Real Madrid now amounts to seven points and 10 with Barcelona. And again the Uruguayan striker hid the slump of the game that is seen in the team in recent games. Matches such as Ipurúa’s were tied last season in pairs. In this one, Suárez earns them. First equaling the penalty converted by goalkeeper Dmitrovic with a goal scorer and then executing Panenka-style the maximum penalty that he himself caused by protecting the ball against Arbilla. Speed does not accompany him, but the trade has it on.
Atlético found themselves with an uncomfortable match at the beginning. With all the dotted with inconveniences that Eibar usually puts. Pressure, a high pace and a devilish intention to run on the sides. The change of the Mendilibar system, which had a 4-3-3 to equalize the ball out of the three centrals and the losses of Hermoso and Koke as game guards with their first passes strengthened the local plan. The leader did not score three passes, subjected to a suffocation for which he found no solutions in Saúl as a pivot, or in Lemar as a hook. Nor did he find clear exits with the gallops of Carrasco and Vrsaljko, again recruited for the starting position due to Trippier’s reinitiated sanction. Again, the connection on that flank between the Englishman and Marcos Llorente is broken. At its fast pace, Eibar flew directly with its pair of Japanese wingers, Inui on the left and Muto on the right. A long ball controlled by the latter on the run ended his takedown by Carrasco, who staggered him in his attempt to clean the ball. Surprisingly the penalty spot was goalkeeper Dmitrovic by order of Mendilibar, who had been proposing it for some time. Among the goalkeepers who take penalties, the history of the League evokes the Argentine Fenoy, who at Celta in the late 1970s came to lead the scorers’ table in the first days of the 76-77 campaign. The last example of penalty shooters in Spanish football was another Argentine, Nacho González, who in the 2001-02 season scored four for Las Palmas. Dmitrovic paid homage to them by tricking Oblak.
The rise of Atlético after the conceded goal was progressive. The ball began to run a little more. Correa, with a volley from the front of the area, collected from a rebound, splintered the upper part of the crossbar. On the way to rest, that was the only trace of danger generated by Simeone’s team. Until Marcos Llorente gave pressure to Sergio Álvarez in a clearance of this in the front of the area. The midfielder hesitated and when Llorente’s raised leg hit the ball he generated a rebound that Luis Suárez did not waste. The tenth goal of the Uruguayan was another example that his instinct is above the game of his team and his own physical limitations.
That what he had seen in the first half had not liked Simeone was revealed by the two changes he made in the booth. The relegated João Félix and Torreira replaced the blurred Lemar and Correa. Neither one had an impact and Atlético did not improve. Eibar followed their own, led by the infinite efforts of Kike García, who hit up and down with Felipe, Savic and Giménez. The hard-working nine had the 2-1 in a low center of Inui that did not manage to deflect by little. Pedro Bigas also touched the goal on a header from a corner kick.
Eibar did not suffer, but began to emit signals of nervousness behind, led by Arbilla. First he was slow to react to a pass to the hole to Luis Suárez, who ended up turning a meter from the area. And after João Félix did not adjust a shot enough to overcome Dmitrovic, he returned to lock the Uruguayan to cause that penalty that Suárez executed with that class he lives from.
Another goal from a goalkeeper ten years later
With his penalty goal against Atlético 11 minutes into the game, Serbian Marko Dmitrovic, Eibar’s goalkeeper, became the first goalkeeper to score in almost 10 years in the Spanish First Division league. The last goalkeeper to score a goal was Dani Aranzubia, on February 20, 2011, when Deportivo de la Coruña tied for Deportivo de la Coruña at the Mediterranean Games stadium against Almería with a header in the last moments of the match. The last penalty converted by a goalkeeper was scored by Argentine Nacho González, on March 3, 2002, in the defeat of his team, UD Las Palmas, in San Mamés against Athletic (3-1).
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