Fear and Dysfunction at the Wanda Metropolitano
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‘If I leave here tomorrow, Would you still remember me?’ crows Ronnie Van Zant in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s triumphant instrumental perfection that is Free Bird. It’s poignant and a near perfect song about someone leaving someone which applies to the chaotic time that Diego Simeone is enduring in Madrid.
"We should be responsible and value who we are, where we are and what we have achieved with this coaching staff and this squad. The more people from the outside doubt our work, the more united and stronger we need to be."
That’s Atletico Madrid’s CEO protecting and urging fans not to lose faith in EL Cholo despite Atletico Madrid’s run of form over the last few months in all competitions. A five-game winless run, their longest under El Cholo, has effectively defined what might be Diego Simeone’s final season at the club. Spanish news outlet AS put it rather nicely with their featured headline reading - “Limp and lifeless - it's time for Atlético to let Simeone go”.
Harsh and maybe a little rough on the Los Rojiblancos’ faithful but it’s a rather perfect definition of their season so far. This was always going to be a rough year - everyone accepted and expected that at the start of the season. After all, this side had lost a talismanic goalscorer and not one but four out of five pillars of the yesteryear side over the last two years which left this season swaying on the lone pillar in Diego Simeone and his young-ish squad.
But exactly the same thing was happening across town at the Santiago Bernabeu with both Madrid sides spending record sums on new additions. For Real Madrid, this was to be expected and many expected them to be in full-blown crisis come January but the tide has changed. Shockingly, the Los Blancos have the best defensive record not just in the La Liga but in Europe’s top five leagues. This is the fewest number of goals they’ve conceded in over thirty years and they’ve supplemented that with a razor-sharp front line despite not having a “fat” Eden Hazard for large parts of the season.
Instead, they’ve supplemented that with young and fearlessness in the form of Vinicius Junior, Ferland Mendy, Rodrygo Goes and Federico Valverde and experience in the form of their own old guard with Sergio Ramos, Karim Benzema, a young old Raphael Varane, Luka Modric and co all stepping up. Sounds familiar now, doesn’t it? That’s what Atletico Madrid did when they stormed to that title and then transformed themselves into a superclub over the last decade.
Yet even now, they’re trying to play their football as a superclub with the air of an underdog despite spending well over €200 million on players. That’s not including wages, bonuses and various other add-ons but it’s still more than the combined sum that the four clubs below them spent (excluding Sevilla and Real Madrid). Even Sevilla’s spending was constructed in such a way that they barely spent over €90 million in cold hard cash on 17 new arrivals.
That alone means that Gabi’s prophetic words more than half a decade ago (“It’s the working man’s team,” Atletico captain Gabi Fernandez said. “We’re changing the story through our commitment to giving people what they want: A team they can feel proud of, that win or lose, they’ll say, ‘Damn, this is my Atletico.") no longer applies. Because the very moment they spent €130 million on an unproven teenager, they lost the right to call themselves a blue-collar side and claim the issues that plague said sides.
Sheffield United are a blue-collar club. Athletic Bilbao are a blue-collar club. Lazio, Brescia, and even Torino are a blue-collar club. But Atletico Madrid, a club with a team valued at around €863.50 million, are in no way a blue-collar club. They may have fans and supporters from the working-class sectors of Madrid but they are not blue-collar club anymore and it’s time they stop acting like it because they have issues building all-around their team. It’s far from a crisis that plagues Bolton Wanderers, Bury and a few other clubs around the world but it’s certainly building up to be a massive problem for the club and El Cholo is right in the eye of the storm. He’s the source of everything and his stubbornness is only part of the problem. There is something wrong at Atletico and Rodri, Lucas Hernandez and even Diego Godin’s departure defined that.
Even now with Jan Oblak and Thomas Partey stalling on new deals, the shock u-turn on Yannick Carrasco’s career in Madrid and as Simeone’s number 2 Mono Brugos decides on his future, they all points to serious issues bubbling at the club. Then there is El Cholo, his tactics and his team itself. This is not the same Atletico Madrid we all know and hate to play against. Not the same side that won a semi-final against Arsenal despite going down to ten men.
And the numbers prove that with nearly everything falling. The biggest change? It's Jan Oblak and the Slovakian’s stats have dumped down the drain over the last eighteen months. His save percentage in the 2016/17 season was a decent 79% (via FBref.com) with him saving 97 out of 124 shots. That increased to 83% the next season with him saving 109 out of 129. That dropped, but still was the best in the league, to 77% with 108 out of 130 shots saved and only because it’s Jan Oblak.
But this season, it’s dropped even further with Oblak managing a meagre 75% but the more shocking figure is that his Post-Shot expected goals is at a -1.8. Now the metric is a little confusing but a positive number means that the goalkeeper has been either lucky, has an above-average defense or the goalkeeper has an above-average ability at shot-saving. While that may seem good, the stats tell us otherwise with Oblak failing to stop easy shots this season despite his shots faced average being the same as it has been in the past. He’s not the only one on that list of underachievers with the club struggling to hit a barn door with a machine gun.
Their xG this season is around 30 without penalties and would put them amongst the top three sides but Atleti have managed only 22 goals from 265 shots with Alvaro Morata leading the list. The Spaniard has taken 47 shots with a 43% accuracy, Joao Felix has 42 and 26.2%, Angel Correa has 31 and 38% and the list goes on. It doesn't make for good reading especially when you consider that their shots on target percentage as a team is only 29% which is the fourth-worst in the league and a tremendous drop down over the last few seasons with them sitting amongst the six over the last three odd years. It’s been their biggest problem and their solution was to bring in Yannick Carrasco after a nearly three-month will-he/won't he saga with Edinson Cavani.
But the fact that the 32-year-old injury-plagued striker was their top option really says everything and yet 1-0 down to Real Madrid in the derby, Alvaro Morata injured and Diego Simeone says “We thought that Camello, who is an international at youth level, had the characteristics to give us the support in the last few minutes. Carrasco has not played for a long time. Lemar could not respond to the game in what way we needed between the lines and we could not find the goal.”
It’s taken them a long long time to get back to the top and this dark spiral will only end when the CEO or chief executive and the board chooses what to do with the club. Take them back to the past and hope that lightning strikes twice or end Diego Simeone’s time at the club move forward. Because while Lynyrd Skynyrd and Van Zant extended their song well above legal limits, their experiment worked brilliantly. Simeone's hasn't and that leaves the club with a choice. But they cannot do both.
