Match of the Day: Athletic Club – Valencia CF
The best part of the week still stays the weekend. Reason one: a lot of free time. Reason two: football. My match of the week: Athletic Club versus Valencia CF.
Athletic - Valencia
Even there are more top teams in Spain then there are in Belgium, the opportunity to see Valencia CF play doesn’t come around every week. David Villa, Juan Mata, Joaquin, Pablo Hernandez, … not the ‘most average Joe’s’ is a term that immediately pops to my head if I hear the names of those players.
And there is the fact that every football fan had to pay San Mamés a visit. A stadium that breaths football, going old English style, not those fancy new hyper modern buildings that have to pass as a ‘football’ stadium.
Pre match experience
Three hours before kick-off and the bars were already full, the official shop was almost sold out and everybody was stoked. Positive nerves were floating around San Mamés, not only around the stadium, even in the centre of the city you could feel that there was a football match coming up.
First 45 minutes
After searching for the seats – not really an easy job – it was time to kick off. The Athletic supporters were trying to create a great atmosphere, but if the players on the field aren’t doing the best job ever, it’s hard to talk about a good game. Pablo Hernandez had a couple of nice moves though, but Mata couldn’t make the finish.
When Athletic’s top striker Fernando Llorente was substituted for De Marcos, my hopes for an Athletic win weren’t that high anymore.
Second half
David Villa after the equalizer
After the break, we finally noticed where San Mamés is famous for. The fans were starting to believe more and more in a good result against Valencia and after the 1-0 from Iker Muniain (impressing football player, and only 16 years old) the stadium exploded. The fact that David Villa equalized a few minutes later (with a beautiful volley) didn’t seem to bother them. ‘Athletic Athletic Athletic’ was rolling out of everyone’s mouth.
The game settled down, but then Koikili received his second yellow card after an unnecessary fault on Juan Mata. Valencia smelled the victory, but they had to wait until seven minutes before the final whistle to take the lead. After a bad clearance from Iraizoz, Mathieu smashed a volley home.
Less than five minutes on the clock, but Athletic didn’t give up. First an offside goal from Iraola was disallowed, but a couple of minutes later Athletic had to perfect opportunity to take one point against Valencia. Referee Antonio Rubinos Pérez was the only one who saw a fault from David Navarro on Martinez, but Lopez kicked the penalty against the post.
To describe Athletic as a club, that’s still a hard thing to do. I would say unique, great atmosphere and very passionate.
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