{"id":2256,"date":"2021-02-23T22:37:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T22:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/girouds-gymnastics-give-chelsea-crucial-advantage-over-atletico-madrid\/"},"modified":"2021-02-23T22:37:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T22:37:10","slug":"girouds-gymnastics-give-chelsea-crucial-advantage-over-atletico-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/?p=2256","title":{"rendered":"Giroud's gymnastics give Chelsea crucial advantage over Atletico Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At 34, Olivier Giroud’s athleticism is supposed to be waning.<\/p>\n

Supposed<\/em> to be waning.<\/p>\n

The striker scored a spectacular overhead kick in the 68th minute of Chelsea’s Champions League last-16 bout with Atletico Madrid on Tuesday, securing a huge 1-0 away win for his club.<\/p>\n

His acrobatic effort was initially ruled out for offside but the decision was overturned following a video review because Atleti’s Mario Hermoso – rather than Blues midfielder Mason Mount – was found to have made the telling touch to Giroud.<\/p>\n

Diego Simeone’s starting XI caused some surprise. Angel Correa, Joao Felix, Thomas Lemar, and Luis Suarez were all picked in a seemingly attacking lineup from the notoriously conservative Atleti coach, but Thomas Tuchel’s team was more positive in its approach.<\/p>\n

Chelsea’s likeliest inroads in the first half were down the flanks, with Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mount displaying a good understanding on the right-hand side and Marcos Alonso delivering dangerous crosses toward Giroud from the left. But the two sides went in goalless at the break.<\/p>\n

DANIEL MIHAILESCU \/ AFP \/ Getty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The English outfit had less joy out wide in the second period and the match seemed to be petering out into a respectable 0-0 draw at Bucharest’s Arena Nationala – Atletico Madrid’s makeshift home due to coronavirus travel restrictions.<\/p>\n

That was, however, until Giroud showed a flagrant disregard for gravity and dealt Simeone his first “home” defeat in the Champions League knockout rounds. It was yet another sublime finish for the Frenchman’s ever-fattening highlight reel.<\/p>\n

“We know the importance of the away goal in European cups, which is why I was very pleased to help the team to win the game,” Giroud said post-match, as quoted by The Guardian’s Simon Burnton.<\/p>\n

He added: “I just tried to focus on hitting the ball well. I was pleased to see the ball in the back of the net, but to be honest, I had no clue about being offside or not.”<\/p>\n

Atletico Madrid didn’t muster a shot on target and sat deep for most of the 90 minutes. So much for that attack-minded XI.<\/p>\n

The second leg will be contested at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge on March 17.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 34, Olivier Giroud’s athleticism is supposed to be waning. Supposed to be waning. The striker scored a spectacular overhead kick in the 68th minute of Chelsea’s Champions League last-16 bout with Atletico Madrid on Tuesday, securing a huge 1-0 away win for his club. His acrobatic effort was initially ruled out for offside but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-champions-league"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}