“I think we were hard done by,” said Leicester City stand-in manager Craig Shakespeare after they lost 1-0 to Atletico Madrid, thanks to a dubious penalty from Antoine Griezmann. “It was a foul but it was outside the box.” Well, yes, it was outside the box and, yes, the referee was a “homer” but hard done by? I don’t think so.
This may not go down too well with those who still believe in the Kingpower owned “fairy tale” that is Leicester City but was the final score daylight, or rather floodlight, robbery? Mark Albrighton deliberately took out Griezemann in order to prevent a goalscoring opportunity. Decide amongst yourselves whether you think this was a “professional foul” or downright cheating – I would have done exactly the same thing, mind you – but the idea that the Foxes somehow deserved better is fanciful, to say the least.
Leicester City employed one striker, Jamie Vardy, who looked like what he is, a hardworking, pacy striker, some way short of the highest class and neither he nor his teammates managed a single shot on target in the entire 90 minutes. By contrast, Atletico had a number of decent opportunities and took only the one that probably shouldn’t have occurred in the first place.
Naturally, Shakespeare set up his team to not lose – only a fool would go on all out attack against such a good team – so the ideal result for the visitors was a draw. It was a well executed plan but in the end I was more than happy that the best team won. Leicester’s ugly, stifling anti-football almost did the job and if it had I cannot see how football would have been the winner.
In the return leg, Leicester will have to come out to play and that will suit Atletico down to the ground. Griezemann is a truly world class player and, alongside him Fernando Torres has returned to slightly more than a shadow of his former self.
I can take only so much of the so called plucky underdog and sooner or later football will win through. If Leicester go for more of the same, they will get obliterated in the return leg and they will deserve nothing less.
