I still don't get Málaga. I mean, I know they're a recently-constructed team that needs some time to really gel together. They're a Manuel Pellegrini-coached team, featuring one of the all-time great goal scorers (Ruud van Nistelrooy), a couple strong members of the Spanish national team (Joaquín and Santi Cazorla), an ex-most-coveted striker on the market (Julio Baptista), and a couple of very solid--albeit old--midfielders (Enzo Maresca and Jeremy Toulalan).
Málaga 3-2 Getafe: Incredible Julio Baptista Overhead Goal In The 94th Minute Snares Málaga Win
On paper, they should be one of the top five teams in the Liga. But they’ve been struggling on both ends, failing to put away opponents, and showing a complete inability to hang on to leads. It’s not completely shocking, as I said above, for a couple reasons: they’re a new team, they’re really not great on defense, and Manuel Pellegrini isn’t particularly good at the whole tactical defense thing (and that’s being generous). But still, I kinda figured they would score enough goals to win silly games.
Which is what happened tonight! I've been doubting my predictions recently, but wow, Málaga sure put on a show. They turned the tables on a dangerous-looking Getafe team by scoring two goals in the last five minutes, managing to overcome Miku's 1-2, a completely illegal goal that Getafe man obviously scored with his hand. Van Nistelrooy finally opened his account in Primera--so to speak--in classic Van the Man (they call him Van Gol in Spain) fashion: he headed a bouncing ball into the net from about three feet out.
Málaga dominated the game offensively, and looked absolutely atrocious every time Getafe even came close to their area. If Pedro León hadn’t missed a one-on-one in the last couple of seconds, this would be a very different recap; but hey, he didn’t and Málaga pulled out a crazy win out of the jaws of defeat. Now, they get to go to sleep as co-leaders of la Liga, and hopefully they won’t look back.
More than anything, though, this game reminded me why I love soccer. It was a clinic of beautiful, flowing, speedy attacking, and cardiac-arrest defending; it had everything from an absolutely insane overhead scissor kick to win the match in the last second to a series of terrible refereeing decisions. What more could you want?
(Side note: Baptista’s goal might not even have been the best goal of the game. If you’re interested, check out Pedro León’s 0-1 for Getafe--he brings the ball down with his quad then blasts it from 10 yards outside the area into the upper left corner).
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