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Atletico still without Liga win after Elche draw / Photo: © AFP
Atletico still without Liga win after Elche draw
Atletico Madrid dropped more points from a winning position in La Liga as their opening home match of the season ended in a 1-1 draw with newly-promoted Elche on Saturday.
Diego Simeone's side lost 2-1 to start the new campaign last weekend and sit on one point after two outings.
Just like in their season-opener against Espanyol, Atletico went ahead in the first period.
Alexander Sorloth raced onto David Hancko's perfectly-weighted ball into the left channel, before slotting past the advancing goalkeeper on eight minutes.
But Rafa Mir got the visitors back on level terms on the quarter-hour with a crisp right-footed finish at the end of a lighting counter-attack by Elche.
Giuliano Simeone came within a whisker of restoring Atletico's lead shortly before the interval only for his arrowed shot to glance off the front of the post, however a goal would have been disallowed after Sorloth was flagged off-side in the build-up.
Atletico pressed forward in the second half in search of their first win of the season as Diego Simeone rang the changes from the bench.
Antoine Griezmann worked Matias Dituro in the Elche goal shortly after his introduction, but the Frenchman's effort from outside the box was easily held by the 'keeper.
Conor Gallagher, also recently off the bench, had a half-chance to grab Atletico's second in the 79th minute when he intercepted Dituro's errant clearance near the halfway line, only for his long-range half-volley to bounce wide of the unguarded goal.
The best chance then fell to Marcos Llorente moments afterwards as he poked a snap-shot inches wide of the far post, although the midfielder may have been in an offside position before the ball came to him.
A cross then narrowly avoided the heads of two attackers at the near post before the ball was recycled to Griezmann who could again only find the goalkeeper's arms from the edge of the box.
Diego Simeone was booked deep in stoppage time for his frustrated reaction to a penalty not being given following a tussle in the box as Atletico endured another frustrating outing.
Earlier, Mallorca and Celta Vigo shared the spoils on the Balearic island when Mateu Morey's late leveller for the home side cancelled out Javi Rueda's first-half opener.
Barcelona round out the day's action when they make the trip to newly-promoted Levante.
L. Brown--BTZ
