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How the Champions League Is Making a Star of Atletico Madrid’s Saul Niguez
- Updated: September 14, 2016
Just as there are certain horses that suit certain courses, there are certain footballers that suit certain competitions. Saul Niguez and the Champions League seem to go hand in hand.
The 21-year-old midfielder scored his fourth goal in the competition as Atletico Madrid fought off a determined and fairly unlucky PSV Eindhoven to register a 1-0 victory in their opening fixture in Group D of the competition on Tuesday night.
PSV—unbeaten at home in the Champions League last season when they beat Manchester United, Wolfsburg and CSKA Moscow at the Philips Stadion before running into the Atletico roadblock in the last 16—have grown into one of the trickier “lesser” outfits to face in this competition.
On Tuesday, they used possession well, always seemed to have an extra man and were fairly unfortunate when Luuk de Jong saw a goal disallowed in the first half. Only the brilliance of Jan Oblak then denied them from the spot after Andres Guardado drove a low, hard penalty to the Slovenian’s left. He guessed correctly and made a terrific save.
And that the save came in the fleeting moments following Saul’s goal was fitting.
As chaos reigned around him in the PSV penalty area—players flew everywhere as bodies were kicked more than the ball—there was Saul, lurking on the edge of the box.
With the ball reaching him at a difficult height, he showed no discomfort as he fired it into the net with unerring accuracy as though this is what he’s been doing all his life. He’s just 21 years old.
Like Oblak, Atletico’s recent success in the Champions League has come to make Saul as a player, as it is easy to forget that at this time last season he wasn’t considered a regular in Diego Simeone’s plans.
Of his first 11 appearances of 2015/16, eight saw him either come on as a substitute or eventually be substituted. It wasn’t until he scored in the 2-1 Champions League group-stage win at Benfica last December—building on an earlier group stage goal against Kazakh minnows Astana—that he really started to nail down a position in the starting XI.
Five days after that Benfica goal, he netted in a 2-1 LaLiga win over Athletic Bilbao, and a reputation was secured.
And in a team that sets up in the way Simeone’s Atletico do, scoring goals from midfield is always going to make you a valuable commodity.
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