La Liga Hangover: Right Now, Atletico Madrid Might Be the Best Team in Europe

If you had to give it a name, perhaps Eruption Day was it. Across four games and three cities, eight teams contested 360 minutes of breathless, explosive football that saw the net bulge with Vine-like frequency. 

It started with five goals in Madrid, and they were followed by four in Barcelona, eight more in the Spanish capital and then seven in Seville. On average, one arrived every 15 minutes—each one seemingly coming in a greater hurry than the last—and when it was all done, Atletico Madrid had been responsible for more of them than anyone. Europe, look out. 

If you’d been told Saturday’s winners in La Liga would score seven, six, four and three, you would never have guessed Atletico would be the team to smash home the first of those tallies. It’s just not what Atletico do.

Diego Simeone’s men are not well-versed in thrashings. If former Levante coach Joaquin Caparros once likened going to the Camp Nou as going to the “dentist,” then going to the Vicente Calderon has been like a date with a slow, crunching meat-grinder.

Teams leave the banks of the Manzanares knackered and disfigured. The scoreboard often says they’ve gone close, but they haven’t really; they’ve just been held at arm’s length for long enough before being killed off in the most attritional manner. Until now, that is. 

On Saturday evening, the Calderon saw the sort of show normally reserved for the Santiago Bernabeu or the Camp Nou as Atleti bulldozed Granada to the tune of 7-1. The home side hadn’t landed that many blows in a single game for almost three years, but this was a continuation of a recent trend. 

After a slow start to the season, Atleti put four past Celta Vigo at Balaidos last month and then five past Sporting Gijon after that. Saturday’s humiliation of Granada means Los Colchoneros have scored four or more in three of their eight league games thus far. Last season, they managed that once in 38, and with 21 goals in the league, they’re now going at the same pace they were in 2013-14, the title year. 

If there had been a yearning for a more dynamic Atleti—a more lethal one—that’s now being satisfied. Simeone’s men look slick, deep. Different. Better. Right now, they might just be the best team in Europe, too.  

Atletico Madrid