Nacho Donado: 'Julián froze on the big stage, just like Morata'

For Nacho Donado, Julián Álvarez started well but faded mentally after missing when clean through on Joan García. He compares him to Morata and believes the second one-on-one, identical to the first, confirmed it.

Nacho Donado has put a name to what happened to Julián Álvarez: stage fright, the same thing that sometimes affected Morata. Rubén Uría agrees that the occasion swallowed him up and recalls that, with the second chance, he tried a chip and executed it badly on top of that.

Donado stresses that it was the same move as in the first half, with the Barça goalkeeper well off his line. In his view, Julián was not coming into the game as the team's best player, not by a long way, but his start had not been bad: he provided the assist for the goal and set up a good set-piece move that nearly ended in a goal for Pubil.

The problem was that first one-on-one in such a big match for a player who has been carrying a psychological knock since the summer. Donado recalls a chance Morata missed after which the striker himself said it had killed him. The same has happened to Julián, he says, which is why he believes Simeone should have substituted him earlier rather than waiting for him to finally get one in.