Monday, November 25, 2024
When it seemed that the season of hope was slipping away, the resurgence of the strengths of the most classic cholismo of Diego Pablo Simeone, who last weekend against Alavés celebrated 700 games as coach of Atlético de Madrid, has led the colchoneros to right the course and still feel alive in all the competitions. These are the contradictions of football. One day you are up, hot, and another day you are down, very cold. That’s why it’s so fun and unpredictable. The Metropolitano team, which visits a Sparta Prague immersed in a deep slump in recent weeks, maintains after five consecutive wins the challenge of competing and chasing glory until it is impossible.
And he does it with the most conservative mold, the one that led him to play in two Champions League finals and win two Leagues. With the defense and Jan Oblak as the main protagonists to continue game by game with the same hallmark. The return of the best version of the Slovenian goalkeeper has been very opportune for a team that walked the wire sooner than expected. “Our DNA is to always compete as if it were a final,” explained Koke Resurreción, who knows that all that lies ahead of the club are finals to believe in, even if they enter the top 8 of the Champions League and thus qualify directly for the round of 16. Although for that they are forced to win practically everything, where after the Czechs they will play against Slovan Bratislava, Bayer Leverkusen and Salzburg.
The calendar, despite not giving the slightest respite, invites optimism in a team that shows green shoots despite its lack of good play based on defensive solidity and counterattacks. «There is no other style better than winning games. As? “Anyway, win,” said the Argentine coach some time ago, who saw how at the beginning of the course no one had invested as much in reinforcing his squad as themselves, and who has managed to excite with this new competitive acceleration. «When the team transmits what it does best, which is to compete with intensity and being a block, sometimes higher and other times lower, it competes well. “It is the record of this entire path that leads to 700 games,” Simeone proclaimed.
Atletico, which is now facing its best moment of the season, has recovered its essence in recent weeks to manage to reverse the bad trend with which Cholo’s team had gone to the October break, supported by footballers who add up like Giuliano , which embodies the courage and determination that its fans demand from its players, the new stripes of Julián Alvarez, the responsibility of Pablo Barrios or the goals of Alexander Sorloth, who once forgotten the bad day against Lille, seems to be beginning to get into tune.
Possible alignments
Sparta Praga: Jensen; Wiesner, Vitik, Panak, Cobbaut, Rynes; Laci, Kairinen, Pesek; Rahmani; Olatunji.
Atlético de Madrid: Azpilicueta, Giménez, Englet, Javi Galán; Simeone, Barrios, Koke, Rodrigo de Paul; Julián Álvarez and Griezmann.
Referee: Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)
Time and television: 6:45 p.m. / M+ Champions League
