One of the defining stories of Atlético Madrid’s 2025/26 season has to be the weight carried by its attackers, a group asked to compensate for a midfield ravaged by injury, to navigate a winter transfer window that brought as much upheaval as reinforcement and to deliver in a Champions League semi-final while still processing a Copa del Rey final defeat.
They did so with mixed results. Julián Alvarez dazzled in Europe and went quiet in the league for three months. Alexander Sørloth scored freely and started
nothing that mattered. Antoine Griezmann said goodbye the only way he knows how, with goals, drama and a lump in the throat. And Ademola Lookman arrived in February and immediately looked like the best signing of the season.
In the third instalment of Into the Calderón’s seasonal player ratings, we turn our attention to the forwards. It is a long list, and a complicated one, including three players who were only part of the squad for part of the season, a club legend on his way out and a mixed bag of form from big names.
Julián Alvarez
Alvarez and Sørloth finished as Atlético’s joint-top scorers across all competitions with 20 goals each, which sounds impressive until you examine how Alvarez got there. The numbers tell one story; the context tells another.
In La Liga, Alvarez managed just eight goals in 29 appearances, a significant drop from the 17 he scored in 37 league games last season. The low headline figure in the league is partly explained by a staggering mid-season collapse: a 14-game La Liga drought without scoring, stretching from November through to late February.
What kept his overall tally respectable was the Champions League, where he scored 10 goals in 15 appearances, a return that confirmed his place among the best in Europe in the big games, when he was focused on the task at hand. When Atlético needed him most on the biggest stage, he delivered.
But the elephant in the room, of course, is his future. Barcelona’s machinery has been relentlessly pulling at him throughout the second half of the season, and the contract renewal that Atlético hoped to formalise has stalled. Losing him would hurt badly, but after a La Liga campaign that sometimes raised more questions than it answered, he has — perhaps inadvertently — put a price on himself.
Where 12 months ago he wasn’t up for sale, if you asked many fans, those same supporters may now reluctantly put a price on a player who scored eight domestic goals at a club finishing fourth.
Rating: 7/10
Alexander Sørloth
In terms of raw output, Sørloth had an excellent season. He finished as Atlético’s top scorer in LaLiga with 13 goals in 35 appearances, operating at nearly a goal every other game when given the chance. His non-penalty xG numbers were elite, placing him in the top two percentile of all La Liga strikers, and a hat-trick in the Champions League to seal progression to the last 16 was among the highlights of the entire European campaign.
And yet the conversation around Sørloth this season was always the same: why wasn’t he starting the big games? Diego Simeone consistently dropped him when the match really mattered, using him as the battering ram off the bench while Alvarez and Griezmann occupied the more prestigious slots in the XI — as shown by the fact that he only started one Champions League knockout tie, against Club Brugges in the second leg.
That kind of deployment reflects how Simeone sees him: a finisher of high quality who lacks the all-round profile to lead the line in a match where Atlético cannot afford to concede space on the counter. While his stats are strong, they are boosted by being the man to feature against Atleti’s weaker opposition.
At 30, Sørloth’s value is as a specialist. He delivered when asked. But this was not the campaign of a first-choice striker.
Rating: 6.5/10
Antoine Griezmann
His last season at the club where he became a legend was one where many expected him to play a bit-part role, but Griezmann perhaps exceeded expectations as he finished with nine goals and four assists across 42 appearances in all competitions, taking on a reduced but meaningful role.
The numbers this season don’t reflect his true value, which was never purely statistical at this stage of his career. Griezmann was the player who kept things calm when they might have unravelled, who stretched defences when Atlético most needed width, who pressed when work rate was needed, who brought levity to a dressing room navigating constant injury chaos.
His move to Orlando City in MLS has been confirmed, and talk of a potential mid-season exit right as the team competed to reach the latter stages of the Copa del Rey and Champions League left a mark that reminded many of his talks with Barcelona on the eve of Champions League elimination to Juventus in 2019.
More than anyone else in this squad, he will be difficult to replace: not because of goals or assists, but because of what he represents and his leadership role.
Rating: 7.5/10
Ademola Lookman
In some ways, Lookman is the most difficult player on this list to rate fairly, because a half-season window simply isn’t enough canvas.
Nine goals and four assists in 22 appearances since his February arrival from Atalanta represents an extraordinary return for a mid-season signing. A goal involvement every 104 minutes is better than Diego Costa managed in his January 2018 return.
He scored on his debut in a 5-0 demolition of Real Betis in the Copa del Rey, and proceeded to become the most electric attacking presence Atlético have had in years, scoring an equaliser in the eventual Copa del Rey final before an injury picked up there ruled him out until the Champions League semi-final home leg against Arsenal. He wasn’t sharp in either leg, and he was unable to prevent Atleti’s elimination.
Lookman’s debut half-season was one of promise and potential, and finding consistency could be what takes him to the next level. With a full season under Simeone, the ceiling is very high. Based on what we saw in three months, this rating could look conservative come May 2027.
Rating: 8/10
Giuliano Simeone
This season, Giuliano did more than enough to put some distance between himself and the narrative of being the coach’s son, but he didn’t quite kick on as much as some would have liked. An energetic start to the season, cementing his place as the first choice right-winger, faded as his incredible amount of minutes seemed to take their toll later on.
He made 31 LaLiga appearances, scoring four goals and registering six assists, and was one of only a handful of Atlético players to remain consistently available — and useful — throughout the campaign. Simeone senior deployed him as his most-used outfield player alongside Koke, Marcos Llorente and Dávid Hancko, a fact that surprised many observers who expected a lesser role.
In truth, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone who watched him closely. Giuliano’s energy, pressing and willingness to cover the entire right flank made him an invaluable piece of the shape, both as a winger and as something closer to a hybrid wing-back when El Cholo’s structure demanded it.
He is not a 15-goal-a-season player, and probably will never be. But the way Giuliano reads the game, links play and sacrifices himself defensively makes him exactly the type of footballer that survives and thrives in this system. His best years are ahead of him.
Rating: 7/10
Álex Baena
Having arrived as one of the most exciting summer signings in recent years, Baena’s debut season turned out to be a significant disappointment.
Baena joined from Villarreal in a long-gestating €42 million transfer, off the back of a season where he created more chances than any other player in La Liga. The expectation was that he would do for Atlético what he had done for Villarreal: provide creativity from wide positions, pile up key passes through sheer volume and unlock stubborn defenses that have stymied Atleti away in La Liga for years.
Baena started brightly against Espanyol before an injury and appendicitis then sidelined him and interrupted his adaptation. Since, he’s tried to fit into a system that hasn’t quite suited him. He finished with just two goals and three assists in 27 LaLiga appearances, a fraction of the numbers he put up on the yellow side of Spain. Injuries disrupted his rhythm in the first half of the campaign, and by the time he was fit, the team’s dynamic had shifted around other players, although he found some better form in the final weeks of the campaign.
The talent is clearly there. Baena led Villarreal’s attack almost singlehandedly for two seasons, and that ability does not disappear. A good World Cup could propel him to new heights, and another summer could help him to adjust to the demands of being a winger in Simeone’s system.
Rating: 5/10
Giacomo Raspadori
Atlético signed Raspadori as an insurance policy, seemingly to add depth with a gamble in a reasonable piece of business given Griezmann’s age and Alvarez’s early-season form.
But insurance is, by definition, something you hope not to need. And when Simeone reached for Raspadori in his hour of need, he found a player who looked like a round peg in a square hole.
The Italy striker played 15 games, scored two goals and provided three assists before leaving in January, making just one La Liga start in his entire time at the club. Simeone had long wanted a strong dribbling winger on the left, and a clever, diminutive playmaker seemed a poor fit. That said, the numbers weren’t so bad given his limited minutes
That said, the club bought someone who didn’t fit and the manager rarely played him. While Raspadori worked hard and never complained publicly, his January exit back to Serie A to join Atalanta was probably best for all parties.
Rating: 5/10
Thiago Almada
If Baena and Raspadori were disappointing summer signings, Almada’s was truly catastrophic.
The Argentine started the first three games of the season but did not start another league match until a three-game run in late January and February. In between, he missed time through injury and accumulated a series of anonymous substitute appearances that left even his most optimistic observers struggling to see where he fits. He flirted with a January exit that never materialised, and he failed to back up any claim for more game time. Conceding a penalty foolishly losing possession in his own box against Elche was a moment that no player wants on his highlights reel.
Almada ended what is likely to be his only season in Spain with three goals and one assist in 27 La Liga appearances, averaging just under 49 minutes per game. His dribbling numbers suggest a player with genuine technical quality but his impact, or lack of it, on matches suggests a player who has not yet understood what La Liga demands of him physically and positionally. In fairness, Simeone has been patient, but patience has limits.
Rating: 4/10
Carlos Martín
The briefest of cameos against Eintracht Frankfurt in September for a product of the academy system who trained with the first team and was in the squad for the first 17 league games without playing a minute. Carlos Martín never was close to establishing himself in Simeone’s plans; 65 of the 66 minutes he played were against Atlético Baleares in a topsy-turvy Copa del Rey match in December. He left for Rayo Vallecano on loan in January and is expected to join the Conference League runners-up permanently.
Rating: 3/10
