Valencia fall at the Wanda

FT Atleti 3-1 Valencia

This one's going to be a bit weird, as it's my first properly covering Valencia this season, and as the game was going on I was rooting for Atleti. It was one of those games where neither team particularly wants to hold the majority of possession, so it tends to fall to whoever feels like they need to score at any given moment. Just from first viewing, which is what I'm basing this part off, the visitors scored a wonder goal from the feet of Uros Racic within the first 15 minutes, so the onus was on Atleti to push for that goal. They quickly found it, with Felix equalizing a little over 10 minutes later.

The match was pretty even from then on, until a piece of brilliance broke the deadlock early in the second half. Felix picked up the ball on the left wing, just into the Valencia half, carried it for a bit and played a weighted ball through to Suarez. The Uruguayan then let the ball run a bit, sized up Gabriel, who was doing something but I don't know what exactly it was, and then rolled the ball into the far corner past Jaume.

The final goal was a well worked bit of football, starting with a through ball to Llorente who was making a run on the right wing. Carrasco play the ball through, finding the converted DM perfectly in stride, allowing him freedom to drive to the touchline before cutting back for Correa to finish on the first time shot. It's one of those goals where the team that's pushing loses its shape a bit and gets wrecked in transition. The typical up, back, and through in the coaching community.

Watching the goal back from a Valencia perspective, the obvious culprit is Gaya. He's the one that should be marking Llorente as he's streaking down the wing, and he even could've prevented/cut out the cut back if he'd been busting his ass to get back, instead of raising his hand for offside. That's pet peeve of mine, actually. I get it if you're doing your job, let's say as the far side CB holding the line correctly, while the right back or whoever is effing up standing 1 or 2 meters behind everyone else. But for him to literally let the man run free, sit there with his hand up, and then half ass the run to cover the space he'd vacated, that's not good from Jose.

Might as well cover the Suarez goal, as to me both CB's are at fault. Hugo for letting Felix get that pass off, and then obviously Gabriel for backing off Suarez. I literally have no idea what was going through his head at that moment.

With the Felix goal, the fault clearly is Thierry for losing his marker on the corner. You can argue he was fouled or whatever, but the ref/VAR didn't call it, so who cares. You could maybe blame the keeper as well, given the fact that he's supposed to command his box. His initial movement on the corner was the wrong direction, which meant he was forced to react to a shot from like 5 yards away.

Second time watching:

I honestly paid more attention the first time. For whatever reason, the recording on Sling started at 20 minutes, meaning I missed the Racic goal. Aside from the moments of brilliance from Atleti/mistakes from Valencia, it was an even game. I realize that's usually how football works, but it's true in this case, mainly due to superior coaching and talent on the side of the hosts. I thought Guedes looked alright when he came on, better than Hugo at least. There wasn't much in the form of xG for Valencia in the second half, or in the game really. The best chance, statistically, was the Vallejo chance from Soler that was saved in the 8th minute. Other than that, there were some speculative efforts from tough angles by Maxi Gomez and Guedes at 2-1 and 3-1 respectively, and that Diakhaby header in the first half. In contrast, Atleti racked up 2.05 in xG, according to understat.com. On a related note, I listened to a podcast earlier, I think it was TSFP, and either Phil or Sid was saying he didn't feel like Atleti were "in control". I disagree. Much like the Eibar game, Atleti went behind early by a fluke goal and I always thought they'd win in the end. I'd say Eibar were much better against Atleti than Valencia were, as shown in the stats. In that game, each team had a penalty, so that evens out, and Suarez scored from a tight angle to break the tie, despite Eibar having created slightly better chances. Valencia, on the other hand, may have statistically looked good, in possession and what not, but the shot selection and chance creation were poor.

Looking forward: next game is midweek in the cup against Sevilla. Sevilla are better in possession than Atleti, despite being less effective in front of goal. I think this will suit Valencia, as the squad's been set up to counterattack since the Marcelino days.