Last update 22 May, 2013 by Julio Muñoz
Valencia won 0-1 against Getafe with a solitary goal from Jeremy Mathieu and took advantage of his rival's laziness to stay in the fight for fourth place in the championship that grants the right to play next season in the Champions League. Neither is his greatest rival., Real Sociedad failed and beat the always dangerous Sevilla at home by 1-2.
On this occasion, Valencia, as it happens many times by the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez, he was helped by his hobby. The first goal of the game was scored by his fans. Near 1.000 people from Valencia silenced for almost the entire match a crowd that did not mobilize even when their team keeps their European hopes alive.
Given the general apathy shown from the beginning by the 22 soccer players who were on the pitch, at least the fans of the group “che” entertained a cold and soporific afternoon in which both contenders had goals to play for.
However, in many sections of the match it seemed that Valencia did not opt for fourth place and Getafe for seventh. Both the men of Ernesto Valverde and those of Luis García brought out a null football marked by an apparent lack of claw that very few endured between yawns.
At least in the first part, where there was only one shot between the three sticks, in the minute 44, and that served to inaugurate the marker. The lucky one to hit the target was Frenchman Jeremy Mathieu, who took advantage of a transfer from Ever Bánega in a free kick to beat Miguel Ángel Moya from outside the area.
It was the only shot that Getafe and Valencia offered in the entire opening act. Before, Roberto Soldier sent a header out and Pedro León, by the Madrid team, scared with a shot that went over Guaita's crossbar. there was nothing else, rest came like a blessing in the midst of so much torpor.
The passage through the changing rooms activated the two teams. At least in the beginning, when in five minutes there were more shots than in the first 45. Angel Lafita tried it first, who replaced the injured Adrián Colunga at the beginning of the clash, and he was unlucky because Guaita found the ball when he shot from inside the small area.
After, Roberto Soldier was left with the desire to make his goal number 99 in the Liga BBVA after failing a one-on-one against Moyá, who saved Getafe from a 0-2 that would have been final. The Mallorcan goalkeeper pulled out a good hand in time for his team to stay in the game.
Those occasions were a mirage and that momentary emotion quickly disappeared so that the game returned to its beginnings, to a nonsense of inaccuracies on both sides with a very marked midfield that was not directed anywhere.
El Getafe, without bad grapes and with a worrying lack of nerve, tried to approach the domains of Guaita without success. Valencia, with the score in favor, I just had to let go, defend well -something easy due to Getafe's attitude-, and try to sentence with a counter-coup.
had them, but he did not take advantage of them and no more shots were seen between the three sticks. The party was dying and Valencia, by inertia, he took three points that keep him in the fight to finish in Champions League positions. El Getafe, except miracle, one more year will fight for nothing.
The real, convencida
For your part, the real, with his important victory at the Sánchez Pizjuán (1-2) continues the hard pulse with Valencia to qualify for the Champions League and maintains fourth position in the table, while Sevilla loses all its illusion of continuing in the fight to play a European tournament again.
Another match at the Seville stadium without the possibility of speculation by the two teams, because Real had been temporarily ousted from its fourth position after Valencia's triumph in Getafe and only the three points in Pizjuán would return it to the privileged position that will allow it to play next season's tie prior to the group stage of the highest competition mainland of clubs.
The Seville team, meanwhile, He was also not worth another result other than victory in his fight to cling to that seventh place that gives the right to play the Europa League.
A) Yes, In the first minutes the Chilean midfielder Gary Medel already tried it against the goal of his compatriot Claudio Bravo, but the ball went high, and shortly after it was Real's French striker Antoine Griezmann, en dos oportunidades, the one who stood up dangerously against the Portuguese goalkeeper Antonio Alberto Bastos 'Beto'.
It was the team led by Unai Emery from Gipuzkoa who did not forgive in their second attempt and, in a play rehearsed at the exit of a corner, achieved the 1-0 with a cross shot from Croatian Iván Rakitic when the tenth minute was running.
The San Sebastian team reacted well to the goal conceded and this was also helped by some signs of insecurity from the local defense, with which the equalizer soon arrived, although it was in an unfortunate play by Sevilla when Rakitic got the ball into his own goal after trying to head clear a free kick taken by Asier Illarramendi, who returned after two injured days and who gave a lot of consistency to his midfield.
The royalists handcuffed their rivals well and came out with a lot of intention to look for a second goal that they found in the boots of Imanol Agirretxe after a good cross from Carlos Martínez.
Frenchman Philippe Montanier's team knew how to turn the scoreboard around in eight minutes and then control the situation against an opponent with no ideas in midfield who left space in their defense.
A couple of isolated attempts by Sevilla before the break, in shots by Álvaro Negredo and Rakitic, they did not bear fruit against a rival who showed a lot of poise and who went into the break with the victory.
In the second half, Sevilla continued to have a hard time finding the formula to overcome the pressure from Real but as the minutes went by they began to chain arrivals and good scoring opportunities, in headers by the Frenchman Geoffrey Kondogbia and Negredo and in an incursion by Jesús Navas.
The Sevillian formation was emboldened in search of the tie but also left the defense very unguarded, with which the match was opened and both the sevillista equalizer and the realistic third could arrive.
Already in the final stretch of the crash, La Real began to retreat with more intensity before the push of an opponent who always tried but with more haste than success and who could not even achieve a draw that would have earned him, nevertheless, of very little.