A more sparkling salvation clash than we expected.
With this article we inaugurate a new column called “Erasmus”: every Monday morning we will tell you about a match from the international football weekend, possibly a “minor” and fun match. In this episode we chose Wolverhampton-Leeds, a crackling match from the lower reaches of the Premier League. Enjoy the reading!
It’s that time of the year. That moment in which different competitions are played at the same time in England, with staggered calendars and rankings that take weeks to chase away the asterisks. Postponements and postponements pay off Wolverhampton – Leeds a real clash of salvation; one of those games that are worth six points, as they say.
Julen Lopetegui and Javi Gracia on the bench, Molineux the stadium: it might seem that the match is taking place in some Pyrenean town on the border between Spain and France, but then the first shot against the dark sky over Wolverhampton dissolves all doubts: such a gray downpour and ineluctable there can only be on a late winter afternoon in the West Midlands. Not even six turns of the clock and the can is uncorked by the player, physically and technically, more like a bottle opener among the 22 on the pitch: Willy Gnonto he almost doesn’t seem to believe that the home side’s right wing lets him freely do the only thing in which he’s really already a champion, receiving isolated on the touchline and pointing the marker in front of him.
Cutback pass, death passlow back cross, unwrapped chocolate: call it what you want, the fact is that Jack Harrison – no, we didn’t ask ChatGPT to invent the name of a Middle Englishman – crosses the left-handed man on the left of Josè Sa. Harrison does not forgive, and as if by magic the sun appears on the Molineux. No, he hasn’t stopped raining as God intended. No, it hasn’t even been 10 minutes.
Strange things start happening in the Leeds area. Junior Firpo who wants to remember who has less football intelligence on the band manned by his former partner Nelson Semedo, being pardoned by the referee on a contrast bordering on recklessness and idiocy. No penalty, Lopetegui seems to cry begging for the fourth official but maybe it’s just the rain that dirty the shot. Two minutes later Harrison was hit in the face by Podence’s cross shot, he remained standing as theErcolino Galbani despite the traffic. Meanwhile, the Portuguese 10 crosses, forcing Meslier to push back. Neto cuts off his left with an almost empty goal. Of course, it continues to rain.
It definitely doesn’t seem like the day for right-backs: Semedo literally never sees it when Gnonto plants a culotte which would make Max Allegri drool, while Ayling is skittled by J. Otto (the only case in which Jonny would ruin the poetry of the name). THE Wolves they press, Leeds hole up in disorder in their own half. Kilman, in theory central defender, finds a prairie to cross from the left. You take it, I take it, he takes the stoic Wober’s back on Semedo’s right with a sure hit.
The central corridor is governed by the reading and positioning skills of Marc Roca and the imperiousness of Chef Wober (please check the translation of leader in German). You don’t enter the area, you don’t go beyond the midfield circle: the first half hour passes like this, between a progression from Kilman and a tackle from Koch.
In the 36th minute the biggest thing happens Premier League of the first half. Campanile after a corner from Leeds, Harrison slides to stop the ball, Dawson falls like the angel of death on the ankle of 11 in white. Clearly yellow. Javi Gracia sniffs at him, the humidity must have brought him a cold. Not even a seasonal ailment can be attracted by Lopetegui’s look: even his deputy seems to recoil while he is in conversation with him, as if afraid of contact with that virus in the shape of a total blue crew-neck sweater.
I was booked five minutes ago and I don’t know what to do? Why not treat the opposing center forward like a dog that just peed on the bathroom carpet? Execute Craig Dawsonalso explaining why, despite a Kehrer on the verge of disastrous, West Ham decided to sell him in January to a direct competitor for salvation.
Two minutes of recovery. Firpo really wants to claim the less witty palm on the green rectangle with a useless slide in midfield. McKennie is booked for time wasting. Referee Salisbury sends everyone to the dressing rooms. Boos from the stands: the right greeting to an objectively ugly fraction. Little Wolverhampton, very little but very good Leeds. Yellow cards are twice as many shots on goal.
In the second half Sarabia came on for the apathetic Pedro Neto and Nathan Collins for the precarious Dawson: Lopetegui tried to turn the inertia of Wolverhampton – Leeds in favor of the oranges. Not even a couple of minutes and Wolverhampton already have time to claim a hand ball when Roca touches them with his tip (yes, you read that right) and scores with Lemina on the following corner. Flag raised, sacrosanct offside, the former Sevilla coach seems to cry again. Out of nowhere, Leeds double up. Roca’s corner, Joao Gomes and Semedo ignore the move from Ayling which, as in Catch the mole, re-emerges at the far post. The header is very central, he tried in every way not to score.
The ball passes under the hands of Sa. Second shot on goal, also in the first minutes of the half, second goal. 0-2. Inertia not overturned, if we can afford it. The cameras do not linger on the Wolverhampton coach during the celebration more like a dad who wants to be nice, failing miserably, with his son’s friends. We would venture that it was not the portrait of happiness.
It starts raining again. Adama Traoré and Cunha enter, reminding us how much disgust face the depth of the Premier League squads. The mix of baby oil and rain turns Traoré into one of those too-shiny-to-be-true waxed apples. Enter Kristensen for Leeds: not news in itself, except that first of all he steals the ball from J. Otto in the middle of the penalty area like candy from a child and diagonalize the 0-3. It’s around 5.20pm. Will the Milan-San Remo already be over? No come on, let’s hold on.
Jonny Otto – it’s funny even written like this – scores with a right-footed volley from 40 meters into an empty net on an “assist” by Marc Roca. Yes, you read right. Two minutes have passed since 0-3. No, no wormholes have been opened. That’s not the beauty of football. That’s what they like about football.
The teams unravel, lengthen, Sarabia and Raul Jimenez you eat the 2-3 suns in front of Meslier, lopsided quickdraws and an anxiety-provoking intensity for 22 men running on a meadow, rains. Nothing different than usual in Molineux Stadium.
In the 73rd minute Cunha collects the short clearance from Leeds, Firpo avoids raising the average quotient of the football decisions of his afternoon by not immediately attacking the Wolverhampton striker. Cunha tira: he is a powerful but central right foot, if Chef Wober didn’t try, badly, to sign this dish too. The result is catastrophic: Meslier is beaten and the result is 2-3. We’ll recover the Milan-San Remo later.
The Whites they flounder as only a team away on an English ground can. Molineux thunders, and this time it’s not due to the weather conditions (it’s still raining, mind you). Sarabia goes close to equalizing with a sharp left foot, but Meslier surpasses himself. With 10′ remaining, Gracia adds Struijk to the defensive line, we no longer know whether as a special agent for Traoré or to prevent Firpo from making another move.
Jonny Otto (how many other times will he be talked about so much in this section?) concludes his quarter of an hour of fame with one of those interventions that makes you scream in front of the screen and shrug your shoulders even thousands of miles away. Luckily for Leeds, Ayling didn’t lose his tibia and fibula in his right leg. Unfortunately for Lopetegui, the final battle will have to take place in 10vs11. Initially only booked, the VAR lets J. Otto out to the applause of Molineux, as if he were the Unknown Soldier. Go figure these Anglo-Saxons.
7′ of recovery. Hands on the faces in the stands, both among home supporters and those visiting West Yorkshire. Meslier stalls, Lopetegui complains to the fourth man screaming “WHY?” With his gaze turned to the ground, trying more to exorcise the devil under and inside him rather than obtaining a logical explanation. Collins does not control the easiest of horizontal passes, Traoré accentuates, as could not be worse, a hold by Roca from which the delicious lob by Rodrigo in the 96th minute. The VAR intervenes when he couldn’t and Salisbury fails to correct a foul call that he could not have corrected anyway. 2-4 confirmed. Spulso Matheus Nunes off the bench. To act as peacemaker is Diego Costa, to understand each other. Lopetegui cries foul but exudes impotence. Final whistle. He stopped raining, but the confusion of the ending didn’t make it clear when.
The Counsel would call it a meeting orthodox no, phenomenal yes. Fear, grit, pride, chaos, healthy ignorance: Leeds win; Wolverhampton falls back into the negative spiral that had preceded the arrival of Lopetegui. A very normal afternoon in the lower areas of the Premier League, in short.
The article Erasmus: Wolverhampton-Leeds comes from Sportellate.it.