Spanish Football: Falcao allows Atleti fans to dream

Atletico Madrid remain joint-top of La Liga after extending their unbeaten run to 21 matches. Ben Lyttleton wonders if they can keep this form going...

Anyone who says the influence of coaches is negligible at football clubs obviously needs to spend more time in Madrid. Not at Real Madrid - who have reached the  Champions semi-finals in the last two seasons and won last season's La Liga in Jose Mourinho's second campaign in charge - but at their neighbours Atletico, for so  long a byword for failure, chaos and controversy.

 

Atletico bills itself as the people's club, a club whose hymn includes the line, "What a way to lose!" In a recent advertising campaign designed to sell more season- tickets, a young boy asks his father: "Why are we Atleti fans?" The dad can't answer. In the same campaign, a 90-year-old explains he has given up smoking and drinking  but can't give up his club. "Atletico kill me, but give me life," is the slogan.

 

But the days of Atletico as plucky losers may be at an end. Sunday's 3-1 win over Osasuna extended their unbeaten run to 21 matches and they remain now second, with an  8-1-0 unbeaten record, identical to Barcelona, at the top of La Liga.

 

Atletico have not always been failures: they won the League and Cup double as recently as 1996 and are Spain's third-most successful club, but the reason for their  new-found success is the appointment of their former midfielder, Diego Simeone, as coach last December. "This is the second club of my heart," he said of Atletico,  where he had two spells (1994-97 and 2003-05). The other club, by the way, is Racing Avellaneda where he began his career as a player and a coach.

 

"His strong temperament and passionate winning mentality has contaminated us", said ex-goalkeeper Jose Molina. "As a player, he wasn't just about technique, but Diego  imposed himself though 'garra' (a South American term for combat), and he demands the same thing from his players as a coach," said Marcelo Bielsa, whose Athletic  Bilbao side were trounced 3-0 in last season's Europa League final. If that was impressive, the rest of Europe took more notice of Atleti's European Super Cup 4-1 win  over Chelsea.

 

"Don't stop to think, don't stop to breathe, this is what he always shouts at us," explained midfielder Thiago. "This ability to anticipate where to get the balls, we  carry it on in the match."

 

The stats show that no club has conceded fewer shots on goal than Atletico, with only eight per match and though they only average 45 per cent possession, they have  scored the second-highest number of league goals, 22 - even more than Real Madrid, who beat Mallorca 5-0 on Sunday night.

 

"I demand full effort and if someone complains that I am asking for too much, that's a weakness and I have no interest in weakness," Simeone explained. "I always  prefer a bad player who believes in himself than a good player who plays without conviction."

 

In Falcao he has the best of both worlds. The Colombian, described by Sky Sports on Sunday as "the best number nine in the world", has scored in each of his last 11  games, scoring 17 goals in that period: before he added a third against Osasuna, his goals-per-minute ratio, 60.4 minutes, was better than Lionel Messi (61.09 minutes)  and Cristiano Ronaldo (78 minutes). He also scores important goals: four times, the first goal, and three times the last, and winning, goal. Messi, 13 goals so far, is  1.56 to finish La Liga Top Scorer with Ronaldo, nine goals 2.3, and Falcao, ten goals, 7.2.

 

We will know more about Atleti's true title credentials in early December, when they play Real Madrid (December 2) and then Barcelona (December 16). On current form,  how they must wish they were playing them now. Next week, though, Atletico play Valencia, the team that has finished third for the last three seasons: Atletico are a  too-short 1.16 to finish third with Valencia 3.0. At the moment Simeone's side are eight points ahead of Real Madrid; if they can somehow finish  ahead of their local rivals, it would be a monumental achievement.

 

(Source: Betfair)

 

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