After the embarrassing defeat against Alavés in Vitoria (2-0) last week, Diego Pablo Simeone and his players begin this Saturday at the Metropolitano (9:00 p.m., DAZN) a demanding one-on-one with Athletic for the fourth place that allows them to participate in the next edition of the Champions League. Atlético takes three points away from the recent Cup champion and a defeat would equal them with the addition that they would also lose the goal average with his rival. Victory would mean a relief cushion of six points with only five games left.
Ernesto Valverde’s Athletic is one of Simeone’s most admired rivals in the championship. “They are an intense, aggressive team, fast on the counterattack, a team that has very clear ideas about how to put pressure on you, that plays football well and that is why they are having a great season,” the Colchonero coach praised yesterday. The Argentine coach appreciates in the youth and physical power of Nico Williams, Sancet, Beñat Prados, Unai Gómez and Vivian the renewal of the squad that the club demands to consolidate its commitment to high pressure and quick transitions. The hiring of Belgian midfielder Arthur Vermeeren in the winter market for 20 million euros responded to that pattern, but Simeone has barely counted on the boy. He still doesn’t see him ready and the agonizing fourth place the team occupies doesn’t help to give him a boost either.
Except for his first season in which he arrived in December 2011, under the direction of Cholo, Atlético has never missed the Champions League. The achievement of entering the great European club competition from year to year, considered the minimum but fundamental objective, has brought the club some 800 million euros in income. This has been the oxygen of the tight economy of the club that lives from day to day. Not achieving that fourth place would be an economic and also a reputational setback.
Since the painful defeat in Dortmund that prevented Atlético from reaching the Champions League semifinals, Simeone has tried to revive a squad that was very shaken, as reflected in the subsequent defeat in Vitoria. At the club they admit that from the coach to the last player they are aware that a great opportunity to get among the four best teams in Europe was lost at the Westfalensatadion. In the offices they deny the existence of an internal crisis, but the concern about the situation has been x-rayed by the two appearances at the training sessions of the club’s owner, Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, and the fraternization barbecues that have smoked in recent days in the Espino Hill of Majadahonda.
At the club they also say that they see a calm coach, who in other seasons has been in similar or worse situations, such as last year before the World Cup break in December. There were more days left, but for the first time Simeone felt that his days on the bench could be numbered because the team had gotten out of hand and was not responding to his stimuli. The solvency with which Simeone emerged from the deepest crisis that he has suffered as a red-and-white coach earned him a renewal until 2027, although the unilateral termination clause by both parties persists if the team does not qualify for the Champions League.
This Friday, in his role of transmitting tranquility, Simeone also wanted to downplay a possible defeat tonight. “Every day we hear the same phrases, because each game has its importance. I am not going to move away from what we have said for 12 years; game by game, the one that is important now is this Saturday.”
The lineup with which Simeone has worked does not include Nahuel Molina, highly highlighted after the defeat with Dortmund. Neither did Morata, relieved at half-time after missing a clear chance at the start of that same match. The Madrid attacker felt that the confidence that the coach had in him evaporated with that change. He has also been affected by trigeminal neuralgia, a strange disease that produces intense pain in the maxillary, mandibular and eyelid areas. Correa and Griezmann, out in this last third of the season due to an injury to his right ankle, will form the attack.
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