Atlético starts another Champions League that obsesses him

As happened last year, when the pressure and intensity of Porto short-circuited Atlético, Cholo Simeone’s team starts this Wednesday at the Metropolitano and against the Portuguese champion another challenge in the Champions League, an obsession since the finals lost in 2014 and 2016 against the real Madrid. That goal ‘in extremis’ by Sergio Ramos in Lisbon and the penalties, Cholo’s miserly approach and the disastrous arbitration confessed years later by the Englishman Mark Clattenburg in Milan, will remain forever etched in the dramatic anthology of the mattresses. For five years, however, Atlético has not been able to go beyond the semi-finals. Last year, he deserved more in the final arreón against Pep Guardiola’s most stingy version of Manchester City, but he finished his career in the quarterfinals.

There was a time when the Vicente Calderón, first, and the Metropolitan, later, were almost impregnable for visitors, but that is history. They did not win any of their five home games in 21-22 and they did not win the last three games of the 20-21 season. Adding both campaigns, he has only been able to overcome the warmth of his fans against Salzburg (3-2). A fan that will not fill the rojiblanco coliseum due to the partial closure of a sector of 5,000 spectators with which the UEFA Appeals Committee sanctioned it for a banner with Nazi symbology among its ultras in the match played at the Etihad.

Still brooding over the tie against Real Sociedad on Saturday and the controversial decisions of Soto Grado, a braid from Rioja, Atlético focuses on the top continental competition with the concern generated by its irregularity. It worked like a shot in the preseason, opening the League with a resounding win at Getafe (0-3), but then came the home loss against Villarreal (0-2), the long-suffering win at Mestalla (0-1) and the draw that tasted like little in San Sebastian.

If there are doubts on the mental plane, in sports Cholo suffers the losses of Cunha, Savic and Reguilón, due to injury, and Felipe due to suspension, and the worrying doubt of Jan Oblak. He has not failed in the last 46 Champions League games, but the bruise on his thigh at the Reale Arena makes him doubtful until the end. His alternative is the Croatian Ivo Grbic, a friend of the Slovenian titleholder and unprecedented before his public. On the positive side, Cholo recovers Lemar and defender Nahuel Molina, who returns directly to the team after serving two suspension games in the League. With the Argentine on the right side, Marcos Llorente will be inside again and will fall from the De Paul team.

Griezmann, to the bench for money

The people of Madrid trust in the good attacking moment of Morata, author of three goals in the League, and in the remarkable performance of Joao Félix, although he has not yet scored. An eleven, in any case, conditioned by the substitution of Griezmann for financial reasons with which Simeone swallows, boasting of being a club man. If the Frenchman plays more than 45 minutes in at least 50% of the games in which he is available between last season and the current one (30 of 41 so far, 73%), Atlético will have to pay up to 40 million to Barça in summer. And he wants to put pressure on the Barça club to lower that clause substantially if he doesn’t want to have Griezmann back.

Opposite, Porto’s first objective is to get through the first phase and not fall as happened last winter when they lost precisely to Atlético in Do Dragao. As the main new faces, it presents the Portuguese central defender David Carmo, signed to Braga; Serbian midfielder Marko Grujic, signed to Liverpool, and Brazilian winger Gabriel Veron, from Palmeiras. Sérgio Conceiçao’s team has won four victories in five games in the Portuguese League, including a resounding 3-0 against Sporting, although they also suffered a resounding defeat against the newly promoted Rio Ave (3-1).