On Saturday, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid will face each other on equal terms, with the form clearly favoring the Colchoneros. If it weren’t for that black series in Catalonia – also for Diego Simeone.
Diego Martinez Penas managed to do it at the end of November, and Borja Jimenez did it last Sunday. They may not be the most well-known names in football, but they are the coaches of Las Palmas and CD Leganes. However, they already have one advantage over the much more famous Diego Simeone: they have already won against FC Barcelona.
Atletico Madrid have been suffering from an away curse since 2006 – and in Simeone’s defense, he has “only” been on the bench for 17 of 24 meetings since then. Nevertheless, the Argentine coach is trying to find something positive in the situation: “The truth is that it’s good that I haven’t won at Barcelona yet,” Simeone said on Friday, “because the challenge is still there. Obviously, I haven’t found the key yet.”
A win would be logical in the truest sense of the word. Atletico has accumulated 11 in a row, making it the team in Europe’s top leagues with the best form. And the opponent is down: Barcelona has now squandered its comfortable lead due to the two home defeats, with the two Madrid teams breathing down the Catalans’ necks. In addition, Flick’s team has played one game more than their rivals from the capital.
But it just doesn’t want to work in Barcelona. Will Atletico play too timidly when they go there? “I don’t know the meaning of the word courage, everyone can interpret it differently,” said Simeone, who doesn’t want to be swayed and wants to work “according to our ideas”. The club’s mentality was recently summed up perfectly by president Enrique Cerezo: “We will not be dissuaded from our idea of playing every game as if it were our last.”
Without Lamine Yamal against the league’s top defense
Barcelona will be without Lamine Yamal, among others, on Saturday (9pm CET), the exceptional talent will be out for several weeks. “It’s clear that he’s exceptional, he’s one of the best in one-on-ones in the offensive third. They don’t have anyone with those qualities, but they have Ferran, Olmo, Pedri to look for other alternatives,” said Simeone, whose team, with 11 goals conceded, is once again the league’s top defense. It may not matter too much that Antoine Griezmann and Alexander Sörloth are the top scorers with seven goals each and will face the much more clinical Robert Lewandowski (16 goals) and Raphinha (11) on Saturday.
Especially if Barcelona make mistakes again when defending high up the pitch. In recent weeks, this has meant that Inaki Pena regularly found himself confronted with opponents running alone towards his goal. What worked excellently in the 4-1 win against Bayern in the Champions League and in the Clasico at Real Madrid (4-0) has now become an Achilles’ heel.
Simeone will also try to outwit the high pressing. “They seek the pressure, and that has worked very well so far,” says Simeone. “They have always dominated the game and were better than their opponents, even when they lost.”
Without winning in a game of pure skill, Atletico is better at dominating games, especially against strong teams, than any other team.
