For a man of such implacable histrionics, and a man familiar with two gut-wrenching Champions League final defeats to city rivals, Diego Simeone can understand more than most the fact that God is, in fact, a comedian playing to an audience afraid to laugh. Sid Lowe captured Atleti's extraordinary Champions Lague final heartbreak:
Unbelievable. Atletico have been in three European Cup finals. Lost all of them in the space of a total of two minutes (plus penalties).
— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) May 28, 2016
A last-minute concession to Bayern Munich in 1974; a last minute equaliser to Sergio Ramos in 2014 and now this: a penalty shoot-out defeat to Real Madrid that ended in a second Cristiano Ronaldo display of vainglory both caveated and exacerbated by a poor performance during the game. Ronaldo scored the winning penalty after Atleti's Juanfran hit the post with his. A dejected Juanfran wandered to his own supporters to beg for forgiveness:
Credit to the Atlketi fans for their response. Juanfran should also not be so hard on himself: had Griezmann scored his penalty in the second-half, or had Jan Oblak decided to commit to diving in any direction for four of Real's five penalties, things might be different.
juanfran approaches the atletico fans to beg forgiveness. the whole stand rises to applaud him pic.twitter.com/iCsQ4Iq8mv
— Ken Early (@kenearlys) May 28, 2016
Atleti fans won't agree that history begins as tragedy and repeats itself as farce. It's arguably even tougher to take today.
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