Goalscoring Is Atletico Madrid’s Biggest Area to Focus on in the New Liga Season

There have been two successive third-place finishes for Atletico Madrid in the past two La Liga seasons, but the second was a clear improvement on the first in all ways but one.

In 2014/15—the season following their unexpected title triumph—Diego Simeone’s side won 23 of their 38 matches, amassing 78 points as they never failed to seriously trouble Barcelona or Real Madrid, with the former ultimately winning the title and finishing 16 points ahead of the holders.

Then last season, those 23 wins became 28 and the 78 points became 88.

Atletico were in the title race right up until the penultimate weekend of the season, before losing out to Barcelona by three points. But by way of contrast, their points tally would have won the English Premier League comfortably, with a seven-point gap on unlikely champions Leicester City.

Curiously, though, despite gaining 10 more points than in the previous campaign, Atletico scored fewer league goals—63 in 2015/16 compared to 67 in 2014/15, and that is a trend that they can’t afford to continue.

Because it is in the sheer number of goals scored where Atletico repeatedly and unequivocally fall short of their two giant La Liga rivals.

Champions Barca managed 112 in the league last season, while second placed Real Madrid scored 110. In 2014/15 it was 110 and 118, respectively, dwarfing the total of Simeone’s side.

The reasons behind the totals are fairly obvious and can be found in the names of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suarez, Karim Benzema, Neymar and Gareth Bale. No one on Earth can compete with such striking talent, and Atletico have to compete with them both at home and in Europe.

Those six players are six reasons why Simeone has focused so much on improving his defence during his time in the Spanish capital. He knows that he can’t compete with the firepower of his two biggest rivals, and so he has to find other ways of beating them.

And although they fell well short in the goals-for column last season, Atletico were streets ahead in the goals-against one.

Their tally of just 18 goals conceded in 38 matches—less than one every two games—was frankly staggering, and it put Barca and Real’s totals of 29 and 34 goals conceded, respectively, to shame.

He knows that his team can defend, but it is that downturn in scoring goals that will …

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