Atlético Madrid will be looking to kick-start their 2025/26 season when they take on newly-promoted Elche CF at home on Saturday evening.
Following a disappointing 2-1 loss away to RCD Espanyol on matchday one, Diego Simeone’s side have an optically-perfect opportunity to get themselves back on track against the team playing in just their sixth top flight campaign this century.
Thursday’s Noche de Bienvenida
(welcome night) helped to reignite the Colchonero flame, with the Metroplitano-goers reminding everyone watching on their screens around the world how the likes of El Cholo and Antoine Griezmann are really thought about in Madrid — the two coming under fire after last weekend’s result.
Elche at home is a fixture that brings a long history of success — a near-perfect record, in fact. Atleti never have lost to the Ilicitanos at home, with just three matches ever resulting in draws. Memorable matches in recent memory include the 3-1 win during the title-winning 2020/21 season which saw Diego Costa’s last-ever goal for Los Rojiblancos.
The last time these two sides met at the Estadio Metropolitano, Álvaro Morata scored a goal without even realising, having dropped to the floor feigning injury once he saw his tame shot take a looping deflection. Also featuring in that match was a pink-haired Griezmann, a pumped up João Félix and Sergio Reguilón. How times change.
Eder Sarabia’s men got a respectable 1-1 draw last weekend against Real Betis, with Atlético Madrid academy graduate Germán Valera grabbing their goal. Former Real Madrid striker Álvaro Rodríguez will provide the threat up front alongside new signing Rafa Mir. Álvaro knows what it’s like to score against Atleti, doing so back in the 2022/23 for his previous employers.
Although playing against one of LaLiga’s favourites in an incredibly tough stadium, we can expect Elche to want a lot of the ball; Sarabia insists his teams play a high possession style. Last week, they managed 62 percent of the ball against Betis.
Elche may do this from a deep lying position, which will decrease the amount of space Atlético will have to play in the final third, while potentially leaving Simeone’s back line vulnerable to a counterattack. The visitors will want to rack up as many points early in the season as possible; they are back in the first division after a two-year hiatus and will want to sustain their place.
Team news
As if losing to Espanyol wasn’t bad enough, part of the fallout from that match was the news of Álex Baena’s injury.
The new boy looks to be out until after the first international break of the season, which rules him definitively out for this weekend’s game.
We instantly saw why Baena was Europe’s most creative player across the top five leagues last season, and why he is consistently part of the Spanish national side. The former Villarreal man is already forming nice on-field partnerships with the likes of Julián Alvarez and Thiago Almada, and he will be crucial to the team’s success throughout the course of the year.
Baena’s ability on the ball and the quality of his set-piece deliveries will be missed, although his absence could give us the chance to see a different look to the team. Alexander Sørloth is the most logical candidate to be the replacement, though recent reports surrounding his future may change this.
Marca seems to think Sørloth’s place in the starting 11 has been “reaffirmed” with the aim to “gain presence in the area” after the team showed a lack of decisiveness against Espanyol.
Griezmann, Giacomo Raspadori and the possibility of another midfielder would be the other options as well as Sørloth, so it will be interesting to see what El Cholo ends up deciding, with goals very much the expectation.
Joining Baena on the sidelines (or rather the other way around) will be José María Giménez, who continues to recover from the muscle injury sustained at the FIFA Club World Cup. They will be the only two players unavailable for this match. No changes from last weekend are expected to be made in defense.
This could be the first opportunity to see the midfield pairing of Johnny Cardoso and Pablo Barrios, of which we have been deprived so far. Injury prevented Barrios from featuring in pre-season, and Cardoso was controversially taken off after half time last week after picking up a yellow card in the first 45 minutes.
Predicted lineup
Oblak; Llorente, Le Normand, Hancko, Ruggeri; Giuliano Simeone, Barrios, Cardoso, Almada; Alvarez, Sørloth.
