Athletic Club Bilbao
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#235
A hétvégi mérkőzés krónikája a hivatalos honlapról
Real Racing Club 0-Athletic Club 1: Just at the right time
Athletic Club were able to take home the three precious points after having beaten Real Racing Club by 0-1, goal scored by Urzaiz, during their visit to Santander. The team had the support of thousands of fans who had travelled all the way to Santander and our victory means the team can now breathe a little easier. It’s fair to say that the team held up well against a hometown crowd, who instead of cheering on their own team, were hell-bent on trying to harm the Athletic players.
On the other hand, the summary of what happened on field can be done easily. A weak first half without any significant goal-scoring opportunities with both teams calling for a penalty whilst in their opponent’s goal area. In Athletic’s case, Dañobeitia was brought down and in Racing’s case the ball came into contact with Athletic Club player Murillo´s hand. Both penalties went uncalled by the referee.
In the second half Racing took the initiative during the first twenty minutes. After which the match had evened out once more and in the dying stages of the encounter Urzaiz was able to finish off one of the few goal-scoring opportunities had by Athletic Club, which is one of the advantages of keeping the rivals score-less.
Following the half-time interval Urzaiz was sent in to replace Dañobeitia. Nevertheless, it was Racing who came onto the field with more determination to attack but they had to face an inspired Iñaki Lafuente. In the 51st minute Antoñito, who had just been sent in, took advantage of a well-rehearsed kick which was the result of a foul but the Athletic goalkeeper was able to send it to corner. Two minutes later, Serrano fired away from outside the goal area but the shot went way over the crossbar, in the 56th minute Lafuente was the winner of a one to one with Pinilla and, in minute 67 of the game Lafuente had to defend himself from a long shot at goal taken by Serrano and he did this by sending the ball to corner.
Expósito stepped in for Etxeberria in the 70th minute, which coincided with a significant change in the trend of the match. Preciado tried to put a little spark in his team’s play by sending in Casquero and Jonatan to replace Vitolo and Serrano. Nonetheless, all the goal-scoring opportunities were Red/White from that moment on. Amorebieta’s long-distance kick flew over the crossbar in the 76th minute and in the 85th, Urzaiz finished off a ball with his left after having taken advantage of the gap created by Aduriz. The goal was a cause for celebration among the rojiblanco fans.
The lack of confidence and the time it took to score the match-winning goal combined to make the suffering seem endless; the best goal-scoring opportunity of the game came when Orbaiz, who was facing an empty goal area, took a weak shot at goal that missed. This unfortunate incident was very similar to what happened to the player during last season’s match.
To make things worse, Prieto and Amorebieta got their fifth yellow card of the season and as a result won’t be able to play against Villarreal next Sunday. Despite this, an important step has been taken in our struggle to climb back up the league ladder and there are still 14 match days left in the competition. The team will never walk alone thanks to the support of our incredible fans, but at last we can say that the club has been able to take home the vital points just at the right time.