Ultimate Guide to Atletico Madrid’s 2016/17 Season

Third in La Liga. First with a Champions League final. Third. Then third with a Champions League final.

Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid have become an increasing force in the collective consciousness of world football fans in the past four seasons, and as they prepare to go again ahead of the new campaign, they’ll be confident that this one offers plenty of opportunity.

Neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid look to have improved hugely over the summer, with the strongest starting XIs still broadly similar to last season’s when Atletico finished three points off Barca in La Liga and lost on penalties to Real in the Champions League final.

Atletico, meanwhile, have strengthened in a couple of areas, so is an improvement in the offing?

Hopes are certainly high for one, and it promises to be fascinating to see how they fare over the campaign.

  

Overview

This is, somewhat jarringly, the final season in which Atletico Madrid will play at their Estadio Vicente Calderon home, bringing to an end what will be 51 years of history before they move on to the Estadio La Peineta—an old athletics stadium revamped to include more than 70,000 spectators—for the 2017/18 season.

As we’ve seen elsewhere recently, the leaving behind of an old stadium can evoke plenty of emotion, and you can be sure that Simeone—one of the more emotional elite-level managers in the modern game—will be playing on that throughout the campaign.

The Calderon is sure to be rocking for several of Atletico’s games throughout the season, and if the team can play up to that, creating the kind of atmosphere that we saw against Barcelona and Bayern Munich in the Champions League last season, then a dream ending for the old ground could be in store.

  

The New Arrivals

Croatian right-back Sime Vrsaljko has been added to the squad to provide competition for the long-serving Juanfran—who might just have got over his misfortune in last season’s Champions League final by now—and the new arrival will doubtless get ample game time given how liberal Simeone is with team changes.

The real excitement comes further forward, though, with attacking midfielder Nicolas Gaitan arriving from Benfica and forward Kevin Gameiro coming in from Sevilla, where he won the Europa League in each of his three seasons at the club.

He’ll hope he won’t be going anywhere near that competition this time around, and there is a real sense that Gaitan and Gameiro will give Simeone’s side a greater goal threat they have often lacked under his stewardship.

  

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