In
the past year, I saw great moments of Atletico de Madrid. First
Atleti beat Athletic Bilbao, really demolished it, an Athletic Bilbao
that had amazed Europe, especially after beating Manchester United in
Old Trafford. Then, I saw that team not to be bashing by Chelsea,
last champion in European Champion League, and even destroyed it.
Also the team made good games against Barcelona, not losing in the
pitch, and beat Madrid in the Vicente Calderon Stadium, a milestone
for the Atletico fans.
In
these parties, I praised the order and the character of the team, the
brand discipline and willingness to close spaces or pass lines. I
noticed Atleti knew very well his script, waiting patiently for the
right moment to score, and for which it had Falcao, Adrian, and Costa
- and now Villa, a great signing for supporting Atleti tactical
machinery. This past weekend, in the Santiago Bernabeu, facing Real
Madrid, Atleti showed the same script, but in a very advanced
version, almost perfect, blocking the attack of its opponent and
threatening it permanently with scoring. This relationship between
the defense so tight, so close to his goal, while having several
chances to score is what disturbed me from a tactical point of view.
I maintain that this does not refer to Real Madrid's performance, but
rather the well learned script executed by Atletico de Madrid.
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Constant
pressure on bands: It is a complex art to combine an organized
shape 1 4 4 2 and then attacking from how you defend. It needs, above
all, a patient team, players that read the game quickly to anticipate
the rival's movements and surprise it. Atleti's shape has faced
distinct game systems and really good players like Messi , Ronaldo ,
Isco , Hazard, Benzema or Iniesta. Atleti does something very well to
defend. It pushes the opponent 's attacking to play on the bands. In
that place, the team win always, pressing and generating 3vs.2 or
3vs.1 disputes. In that space, Atleti has huge chances to win the
ball given the aggressiveness of their players in the recovery, and
the support that they receive from the sideline, which is another
player in favor of defending . After recovering, the transition is
quick and attackers are always ready to receive the ball. It seems to
be very simple, but in modern football that is always a challenge
that implies a lot of effort and intelligence. (See image to the
left, inside circle a 3vs2 situation, typical in the entire game)1.png)
The
balance and discipline: Diego Simeone has build a great team
culture to balance the team according how the rival moves the ball in
the pitch. The team moves like an orchestra making that the opposing
team's movements turn to be extremely predictable. An tuned orchestra
in this dimension generates that the opposing team loses its patience
and becomes slow in its movements, with players that come to be
obfuscated or lose easy balls, and even players more anxious give
that rival team can score at any minute. In this kind of game, Gabi
is the great director of this orchestra and Thiago the best
complement, especially to clear and protect the ball. In offensive
side, Costa and Villa have reinforced very much the Atleti's
movements in the third attacking sector. (See picture on left. Inside Circle, Thiago driving the balance of the team over its left side, in the end of this play RM will need to go back over right, this happened in the whole of the game) .e.png)
The
surprise and the goal: A team so tuned in recovery the ball, it
becomes very dangerous when attacking. Atleti builds so good the
attack from the place where it defends and recovers the ball. Two
things we can say about this characteristic in the last game. First,
after recovering the ball together sidelines, Atleti tends to attack
through the same place. Atleti avoids crossing the ball. When the
team recovers the ball, there are always, at least, two receptors:
Villa and Costa. These attackers proposed quickly 1-2 situations
against RM's defenders. Second, "the surprise" and his
coronation: goal. Making the opponent's game predictable, Atleti
achieved that Real Madrid's movements went to be slow, especially in
the transition from its last line to midfield. Given this, Atleti was
attentive to recover the ball in some RM's mistake. The victim of
that kind of game was Di Maria and her executioner, who steals the
ball, Luis Felipe. The Brazilian player went, aggressively, since
Atleti's zone two to the border are between the zones 3 and 4. The
Brazilian player read very good the play and run 20 meters to push on
Di Maria, remarkable sense of anticipation. Then, once the ball
stolen, Costa only had to define. (See image to the left side. Luis Felipe ran to pressure Di Maria, He run 25 mts from his zone 2 to stole the ball, this is a huge merit of the Brazilian player but shows the idea of anticipating and reading the game permanently)
Conclusion:
Atletico de Madrid showed great strength and maturity as a team.
Players displayed strong attitude, the same characteristic of
Simeone, who was a classic Argentine 5, a kind of player that is able
to control all the elements involved in a game, from the tactical to
the emotional. Atletico de Madrid reflects the work of a team that is
very well educated and trained to read the game. This is the great
merit of the technical and tactical leadership that comes out from
Diego Simeone .
Appendix: Here Below a summary of RM's performance. We can see in this image the effects that had on the RM the strategy designed by Diego Simeone. A Real Madrid that went and crashed every time with the two lines of four players.
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