The ball bounced into the goal from the defender’s stomach brought Inter victory over Juventus

Among the main events of the next weekend in European football were two matches of the giants in the championships of Spain and Italy. Atlético, having achieved a 1:1 draw in the last minutes in the away match with Real, did not allow them to take the lead in the Spanish championship. But in Italian, Inter took the lead, winning at home – 1:0 – against their closest pursuer, Juventus.

Spanish Championship

The main match of the 23rd round of the Spanish championship became the final part of the “trilogy” arranged by the quirks of the calendar. Surprisingly, he forced the two Madrid giants to play each other three times within a very short period of less than a month in different tournaments. First there was the semi-final of the Spanish Super Cup, in which Real prevailed 4:2 after extra time. It was followed by an even more hectic meeting in the Copa del Rey: it also went to overtime, and Atlético got revenge for the recent defeat – 5:3. There was plenty of drama in the championship game as well.

In fact, one exceptional event happened even before it began. During the warm-up, Vinicius, Real Madrid’s sharpest forward, felt a sharp pain in his neck, and he immediately realized that, at least in the starting lineup, he definitely wouldn’t be able to play today. The stadium announcer had already announced that Joselu would play instead. But then there was another twist. In reality, Vinicius’ place was taken by Brahim Diaz in the Real Madrid attack, who actually assumed that he would have, as most often happens, to wait for a chance to appear on the field in the second half in order to freshen up the game. But no, I hit the base.

And this, it seemed, was the situation when misfortune, if it does not act as a good helper, then at least does not spoil anything. For some time Real Madrid quite convincingly refuted the stereotype that Atlético is a more inconvenient opponent for them than even Barcelona. He attacked, created chances, and eventually turned his luck: after a couple of rebounds, the ball went to Diaz, who was in a killer position, and opened the scoring. It was a beautiful story.

It would have been absolutely beautiful if “joker” Diaz had destroyed Atlético with this goal and made it tremble. But soon he was already showing why the term “inconvenient” sticks so easily and naturally to him when it comes to clashes with Real Madrid. Antoine Griezmann came to life, the entire attacking line of the guests came to life. And now the hosts’ goalkeeper Andrei Lunin had to save his team, pulling out a difficult shot from Axel Witsel, and watching with a fearful gaze the ball that Stefan Savic almost sent into the net.

After the break, the Atlético players even managed to celebrate the same Savic’s goal after a corner before realizing that it would, of course, be canceled due to Saul being offside. Meanwhile, “Real” slowly added on and, it seemed, despite the problems with the implementation, despite the fact that the referee never heard the pleas of Jude Bellingham, who believed that he had been fouled, for a penalty, they were heading straight for victory. He got close to it, but managed to miss it, having slept through Memphis Depay’s attack on Marcos Llorente’s head in stoppage time.

The draw, however, did not deprive Real of its leadership in the championship. He is two points ahead of Girona, which also stumbled in this round, losing 0-0 at home to Real Sociedad. Six points behind it (and two ahead of Atlético) are Barcelona, ​​which beat Alaves away 3:1.

Italian Championship

Inter head coach Simone Inzaghi rightly noted after the match with Juventus that it is not worth exaggerating the importance of the success achieved by his team, since there are still almost four final months of the championship: “This is a long journey in which we have only taken the first step ” But, frankly speaking, there will be nothing strange if, when these four months are in the past, the meeting with Juventus will be called the key one in the championship. The layout literally screamed about her special status. For the Turin team, it was an opportunity to prevent Inter from getting ahead, and at the same time spoil its chic winter tone. But nothing came of it.

Moreover, the style in which the Milanese achieved success is important. Not in agony, not through suffering, but playing favorite football with the main competitor – from the attack, trying to put pressure all the time. The goal scored at the end of the first half, however, was a little crazy – Benjamin Pavard, who was intended for the cross, was unable to execute a scissor kick, but the ball flew past him, hit Juventus defender Federico Gatti in the stomach and hit the target. However, Inter deserved this luck honestly. And he convincingly supported the thesis with a game in the second half – not at all a holding game, but one that turned their goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny into the best in the Turin team, who once reflected a point-blank shot from Marko Arnautovic.

After this match, Inter leads the championship by a margin. He is ahead of Juventus by four points, and also has a match in hand. And Milan, which occupies third place, is even further from its neighbor – eight points.

Alexey Dospehov