Atlético Madrid lost at home for the second time in the space of five days as FC Barcelona took advantage of a poor second half from Diego Simeone’s side to stay top of LaLiga.
Atleti were playing to take ownership of the summit away from Barça, and flew out of the traps to take an early lead through Giuliano Simeone. A lack of clarity in the final third from the hosts kept the score at 1-0 until the minutes right before half time, when Fermín López snapped a shot past Jan Oblak on his weaker left
foot.
Atlético offered precious little after the restart and El Cholo seemed to have made some questionable changes, all resulting in Fermín capitalising on a sleeping Dávid Hancko to sneak in behind and grab his, and Barcelona’s, second of the night.
With Real Madrid winning earlier in the matchday, it leaves Los Rojiblancos in third position with a 9-1-2 record, and 28 points.
Here are the key talking points from this disappointing night at the Estadio Metropolitano.
There’s your answer
In the build up to the week when both Bayern Munich and Barcelona came to town, many were eager to see where Atlético Madrid’s level truly was.
It had been a perceived good start to the campaign: second place in the table plus a win in the Madrid derby was not to be frowned upon by any means.
However, questions about the team’s genuine quality quietly lingered behind the comparatively strong points tally and seven consecutive wins. So going up against one of the best teams in Europe, featuring a newly crowned Balón d’Or winner, followed by the highest scoring outfit on the continent seemed like a good way of putting Atleti’s credentials to the test.
Now, upon reflection at the end of the week, we’re able to conclude that they aren’t quite there just yet.
The insubstantial planteamiento that Atleti set out with on Tuesday night against Bayern was replaced by an enthusiasm to go after Barça tonight, that was rewarded with an early goal. At 1-0, the away team was firmly on the ropes, and Atlético had the chance to land blow after blow — much like the 4-0 dismantling of Barcelona in the Copa del Rey first leg in the spring.
Unfortunately, Simeone’s men proved a lack of quality to finish off the job, and left themselves vulnerable to receive a nasty jab before half time.
With Hansi Flick fielding a defence resembling a severed leg patched up with a couple of bandaids, this was the perfect opportunity for Atleti to show some ruthlessness and put the game to bed within the first 45 minutes. Space continually opened up in behind the Barça defence, but a disconnected forward line all ticked at different beats per minute when it really mattered. A lack of contundencia once more.
The 2-1 win at home to Madrid in September is now starting to look like a opportunity well-taken at a time of the season when José Mourinho was still unsure of what his team were setting up to do. That was a visiting team under construction that has since finished the build, and continues to expand the project.
As for Simeone, his “construction” project that he has so frequently quoted, seems to still be waiting for planning permission because the job site looks as it has done for a while now.
Alvarez misses chance to make statement
When your star player drops a stinker of a season, misses a penalty in your club’s first final in eight years, tries to force a move to a direct domestic rival, then misses every single chance they get in the first game played against said rival since the fiasco they caused, it leaves you feeling like a bit of a mug.
Julián Alvarez assisted Giuliano’s goal with a brilliant left-footed cross in the 10th minute, but then proceeded to give up three precious opportunities to provide Atlético Madrid fans with months worth of ammunition in the battle with culers. Not only that, but had la araña buried one of his chances and led Atleti to a win, he’d be 95 percent (or more) of the way to be forgiven by the majority of the Atlético fan base.
Unfortunately for colchoneros, he wasn’t able to do what he’s on the team for — score goals — and we go another LaLiga game against Barcelona without taking three points.
Until the 60th minute mark, his overall contribution was slightly more positive than negative, in my opinion, but the decision to let him play for the entirety of the match had me scratching my brain. We saw just how important Jonathan David is in the Madrid derby earlier this season, and in these sorts of matches it’s the clinicality that often separates the two teams. Fermín López was case in point.
Vuelve, Cuti
They are good football players, yes. But there is no denying that the two goals which Atlético Madrid conceded tonight came from mistakes made by Marc Pubill and Dávid Hancko respectively.
For the first, Pubill allows his interception to bundle off his leg, back into the path from which it came, acting as the perfect one-two that Fermín wasn’t expecting, but nonetheless allowed him to score from. I was trying to decide if it would be too harsh on the youngster to pin the blame on him in such a way, but I recognised that had that been Robin Le Normand, we at Into the Calderón would be openly crucifying the poor sod. It’s an unfortunate action as he thinks he’s doing his job by getting in the way of the original pass, but he reacts in haste and can only watch on as a controllable ball for him ends up in the back of the net at such a crucial moment in the match.
Talking of ‘thinking they’re doing their job’, Hancko seemed to display a classic example of channelised attention when analysing the second Barcelona goal. It was clear from the off that any time Lamine Yamal picked up the ball, he, Pablo Barrios and Alejandro Grimaldo were tasked with dealing with him. So much so in this occasion that the Slovakian was unaware of the drifting Fermín that snuck past him unnoticed, which provided Yamal with the perfect gap to slot a (pretty impressive) pass as the assist. Again, it’s a minutiae, but at this level Atleti can’t expect to win anything unless the players are held to a high standard.
We’re yet to see Cuti Romero up against Lamine Yamal in an Atleti shirt, and it’s easy to say that these goals don’t occur if he would have been on the pitch. But the team just hasn’t looked the same at the back since his absence.
