The black December of last season for Atlético de Madrid had a common denominator: Savic and Gimenez they were absent due to injury in the four consecutive games that the mattress team lost in the League and that hampered any possibility of defending the title. Mallorca (Savic retired after 10 minutes), Real Madrid, Sevilla and Granada beat an Atleti in which Kondogbia had to act as emergency central defender. In those weeks it was common to see Cholo in Cerro del Espino “rehearsing” the trade with the Central African, putting lateral centers for Kondo to clear them as the canons mark.
Overloads that become something else, fibrillar tears, discomfort in the soleus or hamstrings and muscle injuries that lengthen were the tonic for Savic and Giménez during the last campaign (and not only during the last campaign). Both missed more than ten games due to injury in 2021-2022.
Simeone: “Let’s hope this season doesn’t happen”
“Last season it cost us a lot, especially the time that Savic and Giménez were away, which was a lot,” lamented today at the press conference prior to the derby. Cholo Simeone, which added a wish that seems more like a prayer: “Let’s hope this season doesn’t pass.” But it is happening.
Tomorrow’s match against Real Madrid will be the eighth official game this season for the rojiblancos and Savic has already missed six. A thigh injury produced on the second day against Villarreal She’s the guilty. It was expected that she would be out for about four weeks and that she could arrive for the derby. But she won’t.
Giménez, 90 games absent due to injury
Neither will Giménez, who will be low for the fourth time this season. The Uruguayan was absent from the game against Getafe due to tonsillitis (he also had other physical problems), he only played a quarter of an hour against Villarreal and now he has been KO’d for three games due to back problems.
In total, the Uruguayan has missed around 90 games due to injury in his career at Atleti. And Giménez himself acknowledged last May at a press conference that it is already a mental problem. “I have tried everything. From physiotherapy, hyperbaric chamber, dry ice… it’s a matter of the head. It is not easy to do a 60-meter sprint without thinking about what happened in previous games, “confessed a Giménez embittered for this torture.
“Everyone works accordingly so that we have them as long as possible because they are very important footballers for us,” Cholo assured today. And it is that these are two very regular footballers for the Argentine, in whom he has cemented much of the success of his defensive solidity in recent years.
And Griezmann, in that way
The one who is there, but in that way, is Antoine Griezmann. Top scorer in the Cholo Era (by far) in derbies. He has scored six goals against Real Madrid. Second on this list was Diego Costa, with four goals. From ABC we ask him, does it make Simeone more angry not to be able to count on the Frenchman from the start in a match like this?: «We understand that Morata and Joao are doing very well and that Griezmann is doing very well in the 30 minutes that enter because it gives us a change of pace to the team, it gives us hierarchy, it gives us play, it gives us a better society in attack… and right now we are deciding in this way».
Oblak will be
But not everything for the Argentine coach is bad news. Yes, you can count on the goal with Jan Oblakgoes down against Celta and Leverkusen, limping after that unfortunate clash with Reinildo in Anoeta.
The Slovenian completed the first half normally today, working at a good pace on the goalkeeping exercises together with Grbic and Gomis, although he later did not participate in the match as a precaution. He arrives between cottons. But he arrives.
To the casualty list for the derby, reguilon y Lemar they join Giménez and Savic.
