Atletico Madrid Left in a Midfield Muddle After Opening-Night Disappointment

At Atletico Madrid they pride themselves on doing things differently to their two main Liga rivals, but they aren’t supposed to be quite this different.

On an opening weekend which saw Luis Suarez score a hat-trick, and Lionel Messi and Gareth Bale both hit two goals each—leading Barcelona and Real Madrid to convincing victories by four and three goals, respectively—here were Atletico again trying to do things their way and ultimately paying the price.

Diego Simeone had the excuse of being without the suspended Antoine Griezmann—who perhaps wouldn’t have started as he continues to recover from his summer exertions—but his side’s approach at home to newly promoted Alaves never quite seemed right from the start.

They almost got away with it, though.

Kevin Gameiro’s frustrating debut looked as though it was going to get a golden ending when he fired home a questionable penalty in the third minute of stoppage time, only for a fine strike from visiting captain Manu Garcia to level the scores with effectively the last kick of the game.

It was a goal which left Simeone seething on the sidelines, with a rueful shake of the head and several words muttered under his breath. Words that are too graphic to be printed, no doubt.

However, the manager has to look at himself after such a disappointment and not toward his players.

In playing the way that Atletico did—starting with Gameiro up front with Yannick Ferreira Carrasco, almost strangling any hint of width available to the side—was wrong and played into the hands of a team whose game plan was always going to be to sit tight and allow their hosts as little space as possible to exploit.

In this instance, the midfield became a huge problem for the hosts, with four players whose natural instinct is to move centrally—Koke, Gabi, Tiago and Saul Niguez—almost getting in the way of each other.

In his player ratings for ESPN, Atletico writer Joseph Walker laid the responsibility for this at the feet of Simeone, scoring him a three out of 10 and writing:

[Simeone] set up far too defensively in a 4-4-2 containing four central midfielders from the off. [He] needs to learn Griezmann will not always be there to get the side out of jail. [He] tried …

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