The Cup final provided great drama. The finalists were well known names of the recent years, both having rathee weak season, but still ambitious. Atletico Madrid vs Real Socieadad. Real Sociedad scored quickly – Lopes Ufarte in the 5th minute, but Atletico came back just as quickly – equalizing in the 24th minute (Da Silva). Then Real Sociedad took the lead again – Txiki Begiristain scored in the 35th minute. Atletico managed to equalize in the 74th minute, thanks to Rubio. No more goals were scored and the final went all the way to penalty shoot-out. And only here Atletico gave up… Real Sociedad scored perfect 4 of 4, but Atletico missed twice and lost 2-4.
Atletico Madrid in a way confirmed its reputation for eternal losers… one can easily make a list of lost finals. Dramatically lost, but lost… second-best never counts.
Important victory for the boys from San Sebastian – they were still winners, not ready to fade away, still having solid squad full of stars and Toshack proved his great coaching abilities. It was difficult to fight against the odds – no matter what Real Sociedad tried, they were going to be robbed by key players from the big clubs, so keeping strong squad was objective impossibility. Take what you can… and they did. Begiristain and Bakero were yet world-wide famous – and they will become playing for Barcelona, so the victory was both sweet and sour: winning the Cup meant more exposure and losing players. With such predicament, the victory almost doubles in value.
A Football Blog