Atletico Madrid’s Champions League expectations exemplify the club’s growth during the Diego Simeone era

Luis Suarez didn’t wait, and he didn’t look back. At the end of Atlético Madrid‘s visit Elche on Wednesday night, he headed straight down the tunnel, still annoyed that the goal he scored had been disqualified. He feels he needs it – a small vindication at the end of a difficult season, a reminder that he is still here. He has only started one of his last five games, and his last goal was against Alaves seven games ago. In recent weeks, he has rarely played from the bench. This year, he has scored more than half as many goals as last season, when he led Atletico to LaLiga Title.

He is still their top scorer.

Suarez has 11 league goals, the same number as Angel Correa, who somehow never really feel as a beginner. Matheus Cunha, signed in the summer, there are six. Joao Felix – who, for a transfer fee of 126 million euros, is the most expensive player in the club’s history, and man coach Diego Simeone says he will continue even if Joao continues to be popular. angry with him in the hope that he will one day put it together – was injured. He has eight. Marcos LlorenteTop scorer of 12 goals in the league last season, with double the number of goals and assists, without any goals.

Antoine Griezmanncome back home after going out to join Barcelona a year later than he initially thought, having not scored since January, when he scored against third-place Rayo Majadahonda in the Copa del Rey. “It was my fault, I accept it,” said Griezmann. “The target will return.” They will have to. In the last time with Atletico, he scored 25, 32, 26, 29 and 21. He now has 8 goals. He is goalless in LaLiga in 2022, scoring a total of 3 goals all season.

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Another big signing of the summer, midfielder Rodrigo De Paul, scored on Wednesday. It was his second goal, and if he’s not there – as much as he has had nine, seven and nine in the past three seasons. Italy – he has not found nature either.

And this season Atletico really scored than target than last year. “Unbelievable,” Simeone called it, and it was in the most literal sense: watching them, it was unbelievable. It’s the kind of statistic that makes you check the numbers because it doesn’t seem to make sense; it doesn’t check by eye. And then you see that they have conceded more as well. Much, much more. They have conceded 41 goals compared to 25 goals last season. It was their worst number in the past decade.

A week ago, everyone was buzzing about Atletico Madrid making an honor defense for Real Madrid, the tournament champion has just been crowned, as tradition suggests. The debate grew tired and afflicted, as these tend to be, and in the end Atletico did not stand there and applaud Real Madrid on the pitch, informed in advance that they will not participate in what they said became a pantomime.

Instead, they just play. They also beat Real Madrid 1-0, despite the smiles and jokes and the starting line-up – no Thibaut Courtois, Karim Benzema, Luka Modric or Vinicius Junior – emphasizing that, for their neighbors at least, it doesn’t matter much.

For Atletico, that matters a lot, not just for the reason that it could have been. Should have done, perhaps.

It was the first derby they won in eight tries, and the first at the Metropolitano; Their last win, in 2015, was at Vicente Calderon. In the end a run was broken. But this can be a title decider, and it’s not. Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid has 4 matches left. Never mind what you actually do pasillo; a bigger issue is the fact that you’re in a position where you might expect the league championship race to take five weeks before it’s over.

Atletico have always been a team that can defend, but they cannot defend their title. In fact, it’s hard to remember such a poor title defense. It was almost over before it was done, part of their problem seemed to be the fact that they were champions.

Even when they were on top after six weeks, Simeone admitted “we weren’t where we wanted to be.” Something is not right, something has changed. “We need to change our attitudes,” Mario Hermoso say, and that’s after a win. “Everybody wants to win, lift titles, but for that to happen there’s a lot of things that have to happen first. Preparation, training, attitude – that’s the foundation of success.” he admitted. Just look at their results against the bottom three teams: 14 points off, enough to put them at the top of the table.

End of the season Jose Gimenez will admit that “when you win the league, a lot of teams relax because they say, ‘Well, that’s happened.'” said Simeone: “For a team like Atletico, it’s not easy to be champions. rival; it’s a club that’s not used to winning it every year.” A week ago, Jan Oblak says he doesn’t understand what’s going on with them, where their heads are, “because it’s definitely not on the field.” On Wednesday night, there was a “discussion” between him and Renan Lodi.

By the time the derby took place, the tournament was already long, Long No more. It certainly failed them in December, when they lost four in a row. Now they are 14 points behind Real Madrid, having played more than one game.

In the summer, when Simeone was trying to convince Griezmann to return home, he suggested that with him, Suarez and Felix, this team might even win. Champions League. Instead, they were eliminated in the quarterfinals. They took City of Manchester to the line, could have won it and probably should have, but they were knocked down. The idea that they were unlucky is undermined by this simple fact: they have not won a single home game in the competition. At the Copa del Rey, they were eliminated by Real Sociedad4-0.

“All sorts of things happen in a season,” Griezmann said on Wednesday. Atletico’s strongest squad ever (or so everyone thinks) hasn’t played as it should. There’s a sense of identity that’s been lost all year, a recurring theme some time back. They have a team that changes weekly. There are also wounds – Stefan Savic and especially Gimenez – and departures. Kieran Trippier left; Daniel Wass, who was signed to replace him, has only played 45 minutes. Nothing was ever really true.

Simeone admits he has found himself in a position he hasn’t been in before during his 10 and a half years at the club. He said it was “our most difficult season”. However, some things have not changed. In Atletico Madrid’s worst campaign yet, on Wednesday they secured a Champions League spot for next year. And if you’re saying, “so what?” you will be right. So they should. Just look at the lineup, look at the cost to assemble. This is the least you can expect. Well, now it is, and that’s the point. For Simeone, this has become the norm, a minimum requirement, the coach becomes somewhat of a victim of his own success, which becomes a victim of his own. And that absolutely must be maintained.

After Atletico was defeated by LevanteSimeone had a meeting with the club’s CEO Miguel Angel Gil Marin and sporting director Andrea Berta. This was followed by a meeting with the team’s staff, in which they were given a clear message: if you don’t make it to the Champions League, your contract is at risk. We will not be able to pay you. Atletico won the next six matches, before losing the second before Mallorca. Champions League qualification is necessary to continue to develop and only to retain their players; they had a budget for it. It becomes interdependent, a circle: success in football promotes growth at all levels, this allows for more football success, this allows … and etc.

It is not always the case, and there must be a starting point.

“When I arrived, they asked for four or five Champions League spots,” said Simeone. It is necessary to build, strengthen and compete. Forget four or five: next year it will be 10 in a row. Every full season that Simeone has been there, a routine, a baseline built out of something uncertain, was hailed as a success back then. In his 400th league game as Atletico Madrid coach – seven games short of the club’s record – his team qualified for the tournament for the tenth consecutive season. He and Luis Aragones have started 807 of Atletico’s 2,802 matches in the first division between them; other coaches average 32 each.

That’s 10/10 for Simeone, 3/35 in the period before him. That’s 10 consecutive top-three finishes, compared with zero in the previous 16 seasons, 1 in the previous 20 seasons.

In their worst year, they did something they were supposed to celebrate once, something that might make others think, “it’s not them anymore,” but they just won’t go away. There was a moment seven or eight years ago, after a game at Atletico’s old Calderon stadium – now gone, reduced to rubble leaving a highway running in the middle of the pitch – when a coach hit beat a coach from one of the biggest in Europe. the club passed and gestured toward the pitch. “What a horrible team, a lot,” he said, and now they’re back.