Atlético Madrid started off the 2025/26 season with a disorientating, self-inflicted loss to Espanyol. Similar problems resurfaced that made new-look Atlético look quite old-hat indeed.
In other words: the same old mistakes that Diego Simeone is prone to making resurfaced at RCDE Stadium, where Espanyol boss Manolo González became only the third manager
to coach against El Cholo at least three times and avoid defeat.Simeone blunders cost Atlético an opening round win
For light, there has to be darkness. For good, there has to be bad. For every action,
there is a reaction, and in football, these reactions can be positive or…oh so negative.
For every wonder goal, there runs the risk of a shot ballooned over the bar. For every defence-splitting pass, there lies the risk of a misplaced pass. For every great save, there is the risk of a calamitous error.
Substitutions are another aspect of football than can swing the pendulum both ways, yet the negative consequences are often overlooked and dismissed, while super-subs are paraded and admired. But they are certainly not a free roll of the dice that either don’t change much, or change things positively; they can be devastating to a team.
But never in my life have I seen such wildly-devastating substitutions as Sunday at the RCDE Stadium. I mean, you really would be hard-pressed to see a team shoot themselves in the foot to this extent.
Though the 1st half wasn’t perfect, Atlético looked like an efficient and cohesive team, largely controlling the opening stages with comfort, and with a one-goal lead. Particularly impressive were new signings Johnny Cardoso, Thiago Almada and Álex Baena. Aside from the new boys, Julián Alvarez was of course instrumental, with his sumptuous free kick giving Atlético a goal lead at half-time. Things were looking up, and these players looked like the absolute bedrock of anything positive Atlético could create.
And it is not only by opinion that I say they were the best performers for Atlético, it was backed up by individual statistics:
Ee know Simeone likes substitutions, but who would eventually be taken off ? Surely not every player I just mentioned?
Well yes, precisely all of those players.
(Also taken off was Connor Gallagher in the 45th minute, which was not a surprise at the time, but it now reveals itself to be premature in hindsight.)
I could include the statistics from all Simeone’s sacrifices today, but perhaps the most telling statistic is that these players would be taken off in the 45th, 68th and 82nd minutes respectively and Espanyol would equalise in the 73rd minute before taking the lead in the 84th, fully benefiting from the visitors’ loss of control.
Devoid of the stellar Cardoso, Atlético began to surrender more chances to Espanyol. Gallagher, whose main strength is arguably his tackling ability, was taken off just as Espanyol would begin pressing Atlético in search of an equaliser; he was taken off just as he and Cardoso would have come more into prominence. I do understand the idea of Koke and Pablo Barrios being introduced to control the game, but surely, since we know Simeone, Atlético would start dropping off and aim to protect the one-goal lead, which they did, so Koke and Barrios were tasked with handling the waves of Espanyol pressure, instead of the the absolute rock Cardoso and the bullish Gallagher.
Almada and Baena were the next to be hooked, when both looked like key cogs of Atleti’s deep ball progression and final third creativity early on, though their impacts were already diminished by the introduction of Koke and Barrios. Because how many playmakers does one team need? Before it just becomes a flimsy, broken system full of players coming short to offer themselves the ball, but with no runners in behind, or no midfield destroyers to protect the defence?
So okay, they were hooked in the 67th minute, but for Antoine Griezmann and Jack Raspadori, two strikers? Were Atleti going for more goals? Or was Simeone tasking a forward with playing in midfield to see out the game?
The answer is a bit of neither. We did not really push forward aggressively looking to kill the game, nor did Griezmann fulfil his duties of playing left midfield — Almada’s role. Because he is totally unsuitable for it at this point in his career.
Anyways, Raspadori now would be Alvarez’s strike partner. Okay fine, but not for long, because Alvarez would be replaced by Alexander Sørloth after the Miguel Rubio equaliser, so it was Raspadori and Sørloth now tasked with combining so suddenly and so urgently. What did we really expect them to do?
If you’re not following what the team I am describing currently looks like, it’s okay, you’re not supposed to, because a coherent team doesn’t exist at this point. It was so bewildering that even Barrios and Koke now looked frantic on the ball, routinely giving it away because they had no options. It was chaos. Cheap giveaways stemming from the chaos of the changes directly led to both Espanyol goals, Atleti affording the Parakeets acres of space to cross the ball for the winner in part due to Griezmann being out of position.
It all felt so avoidable. It really must be rare to see a manager make five changes that destabilise his team, one after another, each in their own way, truly an achievement. It was the first time I have ever thought “Simeone is doing anything but lead here”. This man knows more about football than me by every stretch of the imagination. But surely, just surely, being this early in the season, with so many new players playing together in their first competitive game, and with things going well and the team looking in sync…surely this was the time to leave things be, to let the team settle into a rhythm, to bed in, build chemistry. Surely it was not the time to rip out the entirety of midfield and attack so early, especially with things going well.
There have been of course question marks over Simeone’s substitution methods for some time, but Sunday really felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Heading into the new season, people want change, evolution and growth, and thus it is painful to see there has been no change in Simeone’s erratic substitution policy. But maybe, since Sunday went how it went, this will be the wake-up call, the point in which the message is delivered:
Hopefully, this means we will see our best team complete a full 90 minutes in the future, or at least thereabouts, especially if a game still needs wrapping up. At this point in the season, there is no reason not to, fitness and rotation is not a major issue. And surely, we didn’t pay such big money for our top players to play 60 minutes every week. These new signings were here to fill holes in the squad, to stop water from leaking through the roof, so there’s no point in holding off the storm only to open up the windows and let the damn rain come through for half an hour.
I think what describes this feeling best was a moment when the camera zoomed in on an enraged Alvarez sitting on the bench after his substitution, shaking his head with disapproval and simmering with anger. Julián: we hear you, we feel you, we understand. This man wants to be the protagonist at Atlético, and by god, does he have the skillset to do that. So why are we stopping him?
So all in all, although there were certainly positives from Sunday’s game, such as the performances of the new signings, this was completely swamped and demolished by all that I just described, so it feels only right that the key takeaways be swamped by this matter also.
