There were roars of joy around Atletico Madrid’s Estadio Metropolitano after Diego Simeone’s team sealed progress to the Champions League semi-finals with a 3-2 aggregate victory over Barcelona on Tuesday night.
Atletico were defending frantically through the closing stages against their La Liga rivals, and the sight of defender Matteo Ruggeri covered in blood was a nod to their recent past, but over the two legs they showed they are no longer the Atletico Madrid that you think they are. They played attacking football and showed an inability to defend solidly, which makes them very different from previous Simeone teams to have reached this stage of the competition.
Holding a 2-0 advantage from the first leg, Atletico’s focus pre-game must have been to keep things tight defensively through the opening period, and not give Barca any easy way back into the tie.
Then inside four minutes Atletico centre-back Clement Lenglet passed the ball straight to Barca’s Ferran Torres, who immediately sent Lamine Yamal into space behind the defence and the teenage superstar nervelessly punished the mistake.
Simeone’s side did not shut up shop then either. Lenglet and central defensive partner Robin Le Normand allowed a huge gap through which Ferran Torres ran to fire home. Atletico’s two-goal advantage from the first leg had been wiped out in 23 minutes.
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This was definitely not the teak-tough defending which Diego Simeone’s side have been renowned for in the Champions League over the years. Collectively there were too many gaps in the back line, but for regular Atletico watchers it was not a huge surprise. Their team had already conceded three or more goals on seven occasions in all competitions this season, and let in five goals over two legs to Premier League strugglers Tottenham in the last 16 of this competition.
Not one of Atletico’s last 36 Champions League matches have finished goalless, with these games producing an average of almost four goals per game. This has happened amid a big turnover of players in recent seasons, including the signing of lots of talented attackers but few no-nonsense defenders.
Simeone’s Atletico have not turned into football’s great entertainers but they do play a lot more openly these days. The Argentine has adapted to modern trends in football, such as taking risks by playing out from the back, and squeezing up the pitch to deny opponents space in their own build-up.
The old dog has learned some new tricks as he looks to finally win a first Champions League title in his 14 years in charge of Atletico, and that was on show over the two legs against Barcelona.
Having played nine times against Hansi Flick’s Barca over the past 17 months, Simeone and his coaches have worked out how to punish their high defensive line. Seven minutes after Torres had equalised on aggregate in Madrid, they hit back to restore their aggregate lead.
Just like in Atletico’s recent Copa del Rey victory over Barca, and in last week’s Champions League first leg at Camp Nou, a mixture of clever movement from their attackers and direct runs from wide players cut open Flick’s high line.
Antoine Griezmann’s clever turn and pass freed Marcos Llorente into the gap between Barca left-back Joao Cancelo and centre-back Gerard Martin, and Llorente’s inviting cross was swept home by Ademola Lookman who had sprinted into the centre from the far wing.
(Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
“We knew that, over the two games, there was only one way to take them on — to attack them,” Simeone said afterwards. “The early goal can happen, as if you make mistakes, they do not let you off. They are so good they make you defend at times, but the issue was whether we were able to play, to attack and impose ourselves. We know we’d make chances.”
Lookman’s strike put Atletico back ahead in the tie and yet it was still not a case of watching Atletico dig in to hold on.
There was a major let-off when their defence opened up again to allow Torres to score another, only for the goal to be disallowed for offside. The drama kept coming, at both ends, especially after Barca defender Eric Garcia was shown a red card. Even against 10 men, Atletico kept giving up chances, with both Robert Lewandowski and Ronald Araujo left unmarked for headers from close range in the closing stages.
With 34 goals scored in 14 games, Atletico are the second top scorers in the competition (level with Bayern before Wednesday’s game against Real Madrid), while their 26 goals conceded is also the second most by any team (only Qarabag allowed more — 30).
This really is a different Atletico now, in many ways. From the crumbling Estadio Vicente Calderon down by Madrid’s river Manzanares, they are now described as ‘nuevo ricos’ at their flashy modern Metropolitano in the Spanish capital’s suburbs. A financial basket case for much of their existence, Atletico is now a European super club, in which the U.S. fund Apollo are in the process of taking a majority stake.
Gone also are grizzled defenders like Diego Godin, and warriors in midfield like Diego Godin and Raul Garcia. Instead they have spent big in recent years on quality international attackers like Argentina’s Julian Alvarez and Nigeria’s Lookman. Some of the old spirit remains in wily captain and leader Koke, and Ruggeri at the back, while fellow veteran Antoine Griezmann is showing grit and quality in his last few months before leaving in the summer for MLS team Orlando City.
(Thomas COEX / AFP via Getty Images)
So whoever Atletico face in the semi-finals — Arsenal and Sporting Lisbon meet on Wednesday to decide that — will have to prepare for a different type of challenge than they might have expected.
Arsenal have experience of the ‘old’ Atletico from the 2017-18 Europa League semi-finals, when Simeone’s team eked out 1-0 wins in both legs, during the final season of Arsene Wenger’s long spell as Gunners manager. Atletico dug deep after being reduced to 10 men early in the first leg in London, then struck late with a counter-attack goal from Griezmann. Diego Costa scored another on the break to decide the return game in Madrid.
Simeone turns 55 on the day of this year’s semi-final first leg but he still brings huge intensity, especially on the biggest occasions. Through the closing stages on Tuesday he was bouncing on the sideline and whirling his arms, urging the crowd to make more and more noise. Instead of disappearing down the tunnel at full-time as usual, he stayed on the sideline to hug his staff and soak in the joyous atmosphere.
“It’s 14 years now,” Simeone said afterwards. “To keep seeing the team compete makes me emotional. The players have changed, we’ve started over so many times, and we’re back among the best four teams in Europe. We know our strengths and our weaknesses — we’re a team who attacks better than we defend. We’ll go for what we’ve been searching for all these years with total excitement, total faith.”
Time has mellowed the Argentine, to an extent. Given a chance to hit back at Barca’s pre-game complaints about referees and the Metropolitano surface, Simeone just replied: “It’s so sweet to be in the last four.” He also pointed out, surely knowing how it would be received, that it was Barca who had turned to a tactical “plan B” late in the game by aiming long balls towards emergency centre-forward Araujo.
Atletico move on to the semi-finals of the Champions League (formerly known as the European Cup) for the seventh time in their history, and the fourth time in Simeone’s era.
When asked by the former Italy forward Alessandro Del Piero on Sky Italia if he feels something magic in the air this season compared with other campaigns, Simeone said: “Yes. I feel it. I feel it.”
El Cholo and his team have adapted and evolved over time as they aim to win the trophy for the first time ever.