MADRID – BARCELONA – Eight days after the end of the League, Atlético, Real Madrid and Barcelona play in a close of the photo, because between the first and third place there are only two points of difference.
What is the balance and panorama of each team in search of the League title? Three analysts from ESPN expose the arguments that competitors have in the last stage of the season.
MANU MARTÍN
Does Cholo Simeone help or harm this Atlético?
Diego Pablo Simeone is not lying. He never lied. Just over nine years ago, he made his debut for Atlético de Madrid with a draw in Malaga. The Rojiblancos resigned in those years to see how Real Madrid, Barcelona, Deportivo de la Coruña, Valencia, Sevilla … have passed over them for decades and celebrated as something exceptional to enter European positions at end of season.
The coach warned that the future is only match by match. Since then, Atlético de Madrid’s growth line has always been upward. From the Europa Legue from 2012 to 2018, match by match, he also won two European Super Cups, two Champions League finals, a League, a King’s Cup, two Spanish Super Cups, because he did not comment on any individual recognition as the most good coach of the recently awarded decade.
Diego Pablo Simeone is not lying. He never lied. At the beginning of the 2019-2020 season, he warned that it will be a year of transition. He had lost almost all of his starting defense last season. They had left Atlético de Madrid part of their extension on the field with the march of names like Godín or Gabi. And all because he needed regeneration for the future. The coach has been criticized for months for saying the year will be difficult. She finished third in the league and eliminated the European champion in the round of 16 of the Champions League.
Diego Pablo Simeone is not lying. He never lied. This season, as if it were a continuation of the end of the last, he raised the best expectations per match and results that Athletics remembers in the last decade. And they said the attack was based on a player who appeared to be retiring at the age of 34 and a young man who was too expensive for what he contributed. When rivals awarded him the league title in December and January, five months after the end, he warned that much would happen.
When rivals complained about the numerous losses, no one looked at the Cerro del Espino infirmary, where COVID, physical injuries and, in many cases, emotional injuries due to the deaths of family members, left the advantage obtained in the first section of the season in -one point. In a difficult season for everyone, Atlético is the leader after 30 disputed dates.
And does he still doubt that the rojiblanco engine is the one that never lies, the one that never lied? As Cervantes said in Don Quixote’s mouth: “Sancho barks, signals we’re going”
RODRIGO FÁEZ
Can physical wear and tear limit Real Madrid’s chances?
The end of the season comes at a difficult time for Real Madrid. In a very difficult week, Zidane’s men defeated Liverpool and FC Barcelona in El Clásico. However, the concern took over the environment according to his coach’s words about the physical condition of the team: “We are at the limit”.
From the locker room, several voices acknowledge that the season is “the most difficult” in recent years. Many players have to dose themselves in training sessions and risk being injured at the most unexpected moment. This happened to Ramos, Carvajal, Hazard, Odriozola or, for example, Lucas Vázquez, who misses the rest of the season due to a sprained cruciate ligament in his knee.
“They didn’t weave pre-season and that, added to the number of games accumulated last year after the closure and the lack of rest, crushes them.” It is an authorized voice of the club that reveals ESPN that the white team is suffering this year. However, the same source acknowledges that the team has outdone itself and grown “collectively” to become the only team that is alive in all competitions.
That’s why Real Madrid is different. Of course, it can fail, because there are many injuries and the lack of rotations can burden a team that already has a limited team. Let’s remember the example of the attacker, where there are only two specific attackers, such as Benzema and Mariano, which do not matter. However, the whites have a unique DNA: when the push comes to push, they always take that step forward that others do not dare to take and then Real Madrid applauds the deeds of their team.
It remains to be seen whether any of these acts can be repeated this year. For now, despite the injuries, Madrid is ready for anything and comes with the desire to fight, to suffer and to win.
JORDI BLANCO
Losing all the key games, is it a reflection that the Boat was too big for Koeman?
Barcelona was deflated at the decisive, but not definitive, moment of the season and the night when he could attack the management, he was left with a frozen smile and the feeling of an unfinished work that suddenly brought him back into a state of doubt. that he couldn’t remember the league for months.
The team that added 40 of the last 42 points, turning its intrinsic destiny into a thrilling pursuit, has already shown signs of exhaustion against Valladolid and suffered a stumble in Valdebebas that forces them to rethink the reality of this Barça under construction, but condemned , always to keep the tone.
It happens that in the roller coaster that lasted until January of the season, every time he faced a game of maximum demand, the result denied him the theoretical power and is demonstrated by the fact that he added, in the absence of a last duel. at the Camp Nou against Atlético, zero points out of nine possible against the two big rivals for the title. He fell in the Metropolitano and Madrid knocked him down in the two Clásicos. Arbitrations? Anyway … But he lost and was left with the feeling that, like last season, he is one step behind.
Ronald Koeman has accepted the challenge of taking over the leadership of a team in deep depression. He agreed to be without a central striker, taking responsibility for announcing in person to Luis Suárez a council decision and starting the course with an inferior team, he says, compared to any other candidate. All the more so in Europe.
And without blinking at the critics, he adapted to a wardrobe that showed itself to believe in him, both for his management and for his changes in drawing, proving not to be as uninterrupted as one might suspect. Koeman also repulsed the youngsters by catapulting Pedri, Mingueza, Araújo or Ilaix Moriba, enduring a loss due to injury (Ansu Fati) much more transcendental than one might think and he managed to move his pieces with agility for find the right way.
Today, it is understood that it is advantageous to say that Barça was great for the Dutch coach, given that he started a project from scratch already injured and faced those of Simeone and Zidane … But the fact cannot be ignored that neither in the key moments neither he nor his players, with Messi in front, managed to hit the table.
To the three defeats in the League against Colchoneros and merengues, are added the two collapses in the Champions League, both at the Camp Nou and against Juventus and PSG, which end up shaping that feeling of lack of resources in major events and place the target of Koeman’s doubt, for many coaches from the interwar period, but not for the future, even if in this terrible moment when he had to live at Barça, he managed to keep a team afloat with so many deficits.
Johan Cruyff said (it always ends at the Camp Nou referring to JC) that the really important thing is to reach the decisive moment of the season with aspirations to win titles and Barcelona, that on Saturday they can win (or lose) the Cup against Athletic, who have already defeated him in the Super Cup final, he arrives in mid-April fighting for a league that in January, just three months ago, no one would have aspired to at the club.
However, in balance, it seems bold, at least, to say at this point that Barça was great for Koeman.