The jump that has yet to come

Athletic played one of the worst games of the season on Monday in Almería. The red and white started well, but their dominance soon dissolved. Villaliber had a good chance of passing Inaki Williams and Walls the rojiblancos had a chance to take the lead with a header at the end of the first half that forced the Portuguese Luis Maximiano to make a great intervention, one of the best of the season, but that was all the danger until the shot came, also with the head, from Raul Garcia in the post strain that was in the last stages of the match after a good pass from Ander Herrera.

The group of Valverde can’t take advantage of playing another for almost the entire second period due to being kicked out Ramadan in the 52nd minute and could even lose the point awarded by the Federation if the home team wins a clear chance to Milovanović in the 89th minute after a counterattack.

In this way, they squandered a great opportunity to attack the Champions League positions. The Bilbao team placed fourth with the same 48 points as Atlético but with a better goal difference and, more importantly, it would leave sixth-placed Betis 10 points adrift, which in recent campaigns is a candidate to fight for the honorable. classification zone.

Champions fight back

It has been consistent this season. Athletic failed to jump into the top four positions in the standings. We are talking about the Champions League because the team remains firmly in the Europa League positions. Now they are fifth, two points behind the fourth place occupied by the colchoneros. The green and white are eight and Real Sociedad, now playing in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 against PSG in Paris, are nine. Achieving the European goal set by the club at the start of the season seems very effective now that there are fourteen days left to finish the league competition back on the last weekend of May.

Results away from home against teams in the red zone of the table prevented the Bilbao team from jumping to third or fourth position. Athletic have not been able to beat any of the current last placed teams (Almería, Cádiz and Granada) away from home and they were in the relegation positions when they faced them. They only managed to level the score when visiting these three teams and therefore left six points that could be very important at the end of the campaign.

The 1-1 draw with the visiting Nasrid team, which before receiving Txingurri’s team was second to last in the table with only one win and three draws at their home field, leaving the team in sixth place. A victory at Los Cármenes would allow them to be placed in fifth place, three points behind the fourth place marked by Barça. Xavi Hernandez.

The same thing happened in the match played in Nuevo Mirandilla which ended 0-0 in the light. A victory against the men of Mauricio Pellegrino, who makes his debut on the local bench, will put the Bilbao team with the same units as the fourth and third, Barça and Atlético, which, yes, had a more few games, which were postponed due to the Super Cup dispute with Saudi Arabia. Cádiz occupied first place in the Second Division and at home won only two games and drew five.

Lose at Mestalla

Something very similar happened in the Mestalla clash. Athletic went down 1-0 in their only defeat in 20 games between League and Cup, but if they beat Valencia in ‘Pipo’ Baraja In the match that matches matchday 21 they put themselves in the same units as the third place team (Barça with one game less) and are three points ahead of Atlético, who also have one game left to play. to play

The set of Valverde had two more away games -Mallorca (0-0) and Girona (1-1), which was the leader of the category on November 27 when the Montilivi event was held-, but managed to beat teams like Osasuna (0-2 ), Alavés (0-2), Villarreal (2-3) and Sevilla (0-2). The three defeats outside the refuge of San Mamés were mentioned against Valencia and against Real Sociedad (3-0) and Barça (1-0)