After two final defeats, most recently in San Siro in 2016, Atlético Madrid in the Champions League finally wants to win again.
Photo: Imago/Kieran McMmanus
Who will ever forget this February 7th? The day when Atlético Madrid shot the local competition from Real with 4-0 from the stadium. Diego Simeone has already dueled 46 times with his favorite enemy from his own city as a coach of Atléti and, in addition to 19 defeats, has achieved twelve victories, and of course no one is enough to approach the epochal 4: 0. Real coach Carlo Ancelotti said: “That was the worst game since I was working here.” That could be a beautiful encouragement for the Rencontre of the two Madrid clubs this Wednesday. In the round of 16 of the Champions League, Atlético is about extending the season in the European Football Circus. If you sweep away Real 4: 0 in a February game, you can also turn the 1-2 out of the first leg in March.
Circus Europe
Photo: private
In the past, the national champions are simply cup, today Champions League: a staged spectacle and money printing machine of football. Sven Goldmann looks at the coming matchday.
The proximity of both months promises more than it can keep in a specific case: Atlético’s great triumph against the big neighbor dated February 2015. Carlo Ancelotti then completed a tour through half of Europe, which led him back to Madrid via Munich, Naples and Everton. Simeone always stayed with Atlético, even if everything has changed around him. His club was once the partisan command in the circle of the established, but now the Club Atlético de Madrid has also committed to commerce.
Cultural currents only serve as folklore for a manageable part of the followers. Atlético has risen from the Parvenü to the regulars in the European Beletage, the dilapidated Estadio Vicente Calderón in the proletarian Madrid south has exchanged for the sophisticated Wanda Metropolitano and spectacular partisan football for a contemporary defensive strategy. Only one thing has remained: the longing to have the better end against Real in the Champions League.
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Atlético was very close twice. In 2014, in the final of Lisbon, preparations for the award ceremony were already underway. The outsider led through a goal of the Uruguayer Diego Godín and the third minute of stoppage time was running when Luka Modrić was allowed to perform one last corner for Real. Sergio Ramos met the heart for equalization and Atlético. In the extension, Real scored three goals and celebrated the “Décima”, the tenth triumph in the largest, most important and best competition in the football world.
Two years later, both clubs met in Milan again for the Derbi Madrileño. Again after the regular playing time it was 1-1, and this time Simeone’s team also survived the extension unscathed. In the following penalty shootout, Juanfran Atlético’s fourth attempt put a fourth attempt on the post and so this final went to Real. Simeone spoke in a steep voice: “I have to think carefully about how things go on.” It sounded like farewell, but he stayed, nine more seasons. On Wednesday he takes a new attempt with Atlético – in March, which is welcome to be a new February.