Atletico Madrid are not the most grandeur of football teams in La Liga, especially if you take into consideration the kind of team they were only 2 seasons ago. When they would serve up an exciting brand of football, particularly for the neutrals, they would score 3 or 4 goals in one game but then bizarrely manage to concede 2 or 3 in the same match. However, since the managerial change of Diego Simeone succeeding Gregorio Manzano, the transition has been quite remarkable.
In his time as manager, Atletico have managed to win 2 trophies against quality opposition, defeating Bilbao (who beat Man United, Sporting Lisbon and Schalke on route to the final) 3-0 in the Europa League final and demolishing Chelsea 4-1 in the European Super Cup. Making many people aware of the threat that they pose in La Liga and potentially in Europe. Diego Simeone has brought in a new ethos for the players, demanding more passion in performances that wasn’t there prior to his arrival, wanting the players to play for the shirt, focusing on awareness and discipline off the ball whilst making quick transitions from defence to attack. This is highly representative of his style of play during his career as a player, highly rated and respected in Argentina for his solid defensive displays in midfield, whilst at one point even becoming the most capped player in Argentina’s history. As a former Atletico Madrid player he also knows what the fans want and has already built a great rapport with them.
Evidently he has integrated those characteristics and styles into this Atletico Madrid team, as they currently sit 2nd in La Liga, after 7 games. Although, it is still too early to suggest anything great can happen this season, this seasons performances and results can give some indication that they should be finishing in the Champions League places this season at least. They’ve scored 18 goals from 7 games already (only Barca have scored more with 19) and conceded only 8 (3 came in the last 10 minutes of a game against Rayo Vallecano). These stats are impressive but, however, they don’t entirely reflect their philosophy of football, Diego Simeone cares little about possession and prefers his team to focus more of position, positions in where they can win the ball back quickly enough to set up a counter-attack and positions in where they can make tackles and intercept the ball from the opponents.
The only side to avoid defeat from Atletico has been Levante, a 1-1 draw that came through a shift in formation from Simeone, opting for a 3-4-2-1 formation on the opening game against Levante. Since then the formation hasn’t been used and they have won all their games in domestic and European competition. Continuing their impressive run of 14 European games won in a row.
Atletico Madrid have averaged only 45.8% possession in La Liga this season, compared to 50% last season, that’s a considerable drop in keeping possession, which has been sacrificed for a more penetrative game without the ball. Which begs the question:
How can they be so penetrative whilst seeing less of the ball than their opponents?
First things first, they are efficient with their use of the ball, they favour to get the ball quickly up the pitch to support Europe’s most feared striker (if you don’t count Messi or Ronaldo), Radamel Falcao who has scored 8 goals in 6 La Liga games thus far. Also, they play with a fairly standard shape off the ball but very difficult to break down because of their disregard to possession, with two banks of four, featuring 2 very central and deep holding players – Gabi and Mario Suarez, who are rarely caught out of possession in wide areas or high up the pitch supporting attacks. This is mainly because Atletico move the ball so quickly Gabi and Mario Suarez won’t get the opportunity to build up attacks in the opposition half, thus leading to potentially being caught out of position. Atletico’s full-backs tuck in very narrow and the wingers track the full backs, then break quickly to support Falcao. Last season this was effective when Adrian notched up an impressive 19 goals in all competitions, although he has found chances hard to come by this season due to the form of Arda Turan and increased competition in wide areas.
The fact that this season they have averaged 15 shots per game, (3rd highest) in La Liga goes to show that possession means little to Atletico and getting the ball up the pitch quickly will deservingly allow them more shots per game. Furthermore, their work off the ball correlates well with the amount of shots they allow their opponents to have per game, they’ve conceded the least amount of shots per game in La Liga, 8 shots per game and they average the 2nd most tackles too with 25 tackles per game. This dignifies how much work Diego Simeone puts into defensive drills on the training ground and making sure his side are imposing and disciplined off the ball.
Another interesting statistic that appears to correlate with Atletico’s style of play is their favouritism to cross the ball, this is better suited to Falcao because his movement is too tantalising that defenders don’t know whether he is coming off the back of them for a header or positioning himself in front of them for a near post tap in. Atletico Madrid have averaged 25 crosses per game, the 2nd highest in La Liga. Atletico are fully utilizing Falcao’s strengths by giving him the service that his goal tally demands.
As I mentioned from before that Atletico aren’t a side who focus on ball retention, an intriguing aspect of their play is how they manage plenty of touches in the oppositions half, 33% of their touches come from attacking zones and that’s solely down to their reliance on fast transitions of play, but the quality of players that they have also supports this statistic.
The departure of the Brazilian play-maker Diego seems to have played its part too, Diego Simeone has said he believes that his squad is stronger than last season, “We lost Diego as an individual but we have definitely improved other positions on the field, we now have a lot more competition for places and many more parts to the team”. The re-arrival of Raul Garcia and the emergence of young talent Koke has benefited them with more depth in central areas. Garcia who had a good season with Osasuna, has managed 2 goals and a assist in 4 appearances, 2 of them being starts. Koke has managed an astonishing 19 key passes in only 5 appearances, averaging 3.8 key passes per game. This has given Atletico more selection and enhanced creativity after the departure of Diego.
It would be too early and naive to suggest that Atletico can challenge Barcelona and Real Madrid in La Liga, although solid performances and results may prove otherwise, but they are still yet to play Real Madrid, Barca, Sevilla or Valencia who will all provide sterner tests. However, they have seen off early season hitters Malaga in a well-fought 2-1 win at home. The general consensus believe that anything other than a 4th place finish in La Liga will be granted as failure, but retaining their Europa League title won’t be a surprise to many. The transfer window has seen them bring in decent quality of players such as Cristian Rodriguez and Emre, so with a larger and hungrier squad, expectations will be quite high at Vicente Calderon.
The statistics consulted can be found on Whoscored.com
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