After a successful steal, Mikel San José made a slight adjustment and sent a fast overhead pass to the right side of the frontcourt.

Muniain, who switched to the right flank, unloaded the ball with his chest and struck directly in the direction of the opponent's Atletico Madrid penalty area.

Although Insua rushed to Muniain at the first time, the Argentine full-back, who was weak in attack and defense, was easily eliminated by the opponent with continuous changes of direction.

In the face of Miranda's supplementary defense, Muniain first pretended to break through the opponent's right side and shook the opponent's body center of gravity slightly, and then flicked the ball horizontally with the outside of his left foot, and then dodged a little bit of the shot, and then used a curling ball to break through the goal of Atletico Madrid again.

In the 44th minute of the first half, the tenacious Athletic Bilbao overtook the score thanks to Muniain's solo performance.

…………

Looking at the somewhat dazzling score on the big screen in the San Mames stadium, Feng Quan, who continued to sit on the bench in this game, was also very complicated.

In the past games, due to his presence on the court, Feng Quan's own feelings were not particularly clear and accurate, but after sitting on the bench in the last two games, he finally found that the performance of his teammates in the game was indeed a little different from the previous games.

Obviously, you can get rid of the opponent's entanglement with a simple wall-hitting coordination, but some teammates have to rely on personal dribbling to break through the opponent's defense; When it is clear that you can penetrate the opponent's defense with a simple and fast through ball, you have to rely on some coordination that is more enjoyable than effective to achieve the same goal.

While all this makes the game more enjoyable to a certain extent, it also adds valuable time to the opponent's defense, which reduces the efficiency of their own attack.

In fact, not only some Atletico Madrid players on the field, but even Feng Quan himself has changed a lot of his own style of play due to the gradual improvement of his ability to grab points in the penalty area in recent times and the continuous high scoring rate.

In the previous game, after using personal breakthroughs to tear apart the opponent's defense, most of the time he chose to pass the ball to a teammate in a better position, and only chose to hit the goal himself when the opportunity was very good.

However, in the last few games, Feng Quan has significantly reduced his activities on the side when he is without the ball, and has increased the number of times he has hit the opponent's penalty area to receive passes from his teammates, and with Messi's recent outburst, Feng Quan's unreasonable shooting options in the game have also increased.

It is precisely because of this that Feng Quan firmly holds the top spot in the scorer list, but has only contributed one assist in the last six appearances.

Although the average number of goals per game has increased compared to the first half of the season, the average number of shots per game and the shooting percentage of Atletico Madrid have shown a downward trend.

As the saying goes, "the clouds are deep and I don't know where to go, just because I am in this mountain".

In the past, when Feng Quan was playing side by side with his teammates on the court, he was not aware of the changes that had happened to him in recent times, but after sitting on the bench for two consecutive games, Feng Quan finally deeply realized the changes in himself and the impact that followed on the team as a whole.

…………

As Athletic Bilbao celebrated the goal in the 45th minute, the referee on duty blew the whistle for the end of the first half just after Atletico Madrid kicked off.

Although even losing this game will not have much impact on Atletico Madrid's league title, the performance of the players in the second half of the first half still made Diego Simeone quite unhappy.

"Do you think we're 17 points ahead of Barcelona in the standings and will win the league title?" Diego Simeone roared with anger in the away dressing room.

"Maybe it's really hard for other teams to shake our lead in the rest of the league, but is it satisfying to have just one league title? Don't forget, we have the knockout rounds of the Champions League just around the corner, and the Champions League trophy is the only thing missing from our club's showroom. ”

"Based on your performance in the first half, not to mention winning the Champions League, I'm afraid it's worrying whether you can keep the top spot in the rest of the league."

Trying to calm down his emotions a little, Gabi, the captain who was quite normal in the first half of the game, said: "BOSS, our performance in the second half of the first half is indeed like a piece of shit, but please believe that we will definitely give you a satisfactory answer in the second half of the game." ”

Hearing this, Diego Simeone nodded and said: "In fact, the reason why the team was overtaken by the opponent in the second half of the first half is that you didn't play the way you are best at playing. As long as you can abandon the mentality of being a strong person, and make every opponent fight for every ball for your own strong opponent, I believe that you can defeat any opponent now! ”

…………

Although Atletico Madrid, who were in a backward situation, urgently needed to step up their attack in the second half in order to recover the score disadvantage, Diego Simeone only replaced the underperforming Insua with Felipe Luiz at the start of the second half, and did not intend to send an attacking killer like Feng Quan or Diego Costa.

In Diego Simeone's view, as long as the players on the field can maintain a simple and fast pace of play like in previous games, while abandoning their self-aggrandizement, they can still control the initiative of the game with the advantage of overall strength.

However, the Argentine coach seems to have underestimated the Basques' ability to defend their "territory". Amid the cheers of more than 40,000 home fans, Athletic Bilbao, who led the score, did not adopt the tactics of shrinking the defense, but relied on fierce scrambling and sharp wing attacks to constantly maneuver with the La Liga leaders.

Although Atletico Madrid, who have the upper hand in midfield, has a certain advantage in terms of possession time, in the absence of absolute main players such as Feng Quan and Diego Costa, Athletic Bilbao's fierce pressing makes it difficult for Atletico Madrid to create a real threat in the opponent's 30-meter area.

Therefore, although Atletico Madrid occupied more time on the ball, the score remained 1-2 on the big screen in the stadium until the full time was close to 70 minutes.

Although his team has been unable to open up the situation for a long time, Diego Simeone, who is sitting in the dugout, has a calm look on his face. After all, with only eight rounds left in La Liga, even if Atletico Madrid loses this game and direct rivals Barcelona take all three points, there is still a huge gap of 14 points between the two teams.

Not only that, in the last 7 rounds of the league, Atletico Madrid will also encounter three or four teams such as Malaga and Levante who are worried about relegation, but it is difficult to qualify for the Champions League.

In Diego Simeone's opinion, it is not difficult for his team to get at least eight points against such an opponent. In addition, if the Atletico Madrid players, who have been smooth sailing since the beginning of this season, lose this game in the end, it may be more conducive for them to correct their mentality in the future games, so as to truly value any opponent.

Because of this, Diego Simeone would rather lose this game than let the striker duo of Feng Quan and Diego Costa consume "unnecessary" energy before the Champions League quarter-finals.