LaLiga Preview: Can Simeone and Atletico Madrid Scratch Their Barcelona Itch?

It had started brightly, quickly became complicated and then fizzled out to more of the same. As a pattern, it was all too familiar, and in their case, familiarity doesn't breed contempt but fury.

At the Camp Nou in January, Atletico Madrid had gone ahead against Barcelona following an early burst, Koke finishing a fine team move. Right there, they were dominant and purposeful; it looked as though things would be different this time, and that was the cruel part. Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez hit back quickly, Filipe Luis and Diego Godin subsequently lost their heads, and Atleti just lost. "Happiness," the American poet Ogden Nash once said, "is having a scratch for every itch."

If that's true, Diego Simeone and Atleti haven't got there yet. 

For the Argentinian and his players, Barcelona have become the itch for which they haven't had a scratch. Since Simeone's arrival at the Vicente Calderon in late 2011, his side have faced the Catalans in the league on nine occasions and are yet to win. Their record in that time reads two draws, seven losses, 17 goals conceded and only seven scored, the pattern maddening for them: go ahead, suffer blows, can't quite hit back.

In four of their last five losses in all competitions to Barca, Simeone's men have grabbed the first goal; in three of them, they've then had men sent off; in two of those, two were.

Atleti have enjoyed success against them in Europe, yes, but between the league's last two title winners it's a balance that's curiously lopsided domestically, as though Barcelona's circumstances haven't seemed to matter, and in a way, that's true. 

Date	Venue	Result	Score
30 Jan 2016	Camp Nou	L	1-2
12 Sep 2015	Vicente Calderon	L	1-2
17 May 2015	Vicente Calderon	L	0-1
11 Jan 2015	Camp Nou	L	1-3
17 May 2014	Camp Nou	D	1-1
11 Jan 2014	Vicente Calderon	D	0-0
12 May 2013	Vicente Calderon	L	1-2
16 Dec 2012	Camp Nou	L	1-4
26 Feb 2012	Vicente Calderon	L	1-2

Even in their low moments, the Blaugrana have fought past the men from the Calderon. Their 3-1 win in January 2015 in the middle of an institutional crisis was striking in both its style and its rebellion against mood, the night becoming the take-off point for the current incarnation of Barca. In the two completed seasons since Luis Enrique's switch to the Camp Nou, Barcelona remain the only club of 22 in LaLiga that Atleti haven't beaten. Tenth time lucky? 

You sense Simeone isn't a believer in luck, but he needs something to change in the picture of this rivalry.

On Wednesday, his side travel east to Catalonia at a delicate time in their young season, confidence having only recently started to build. "There is never an ideal time to visit Camp Nou," said Fernando Torres to beIN Sports (h/t AS). "But now's as good as any." On the back of thumping wins over Celta Vigo and Sporting Gijon, it probably is, the sluggishness of their opening stalemates with Alaves and Leganes blown away by an uncharacteristic eruption. 

But Barcelona are not Celta or Sporting. Enrique's men are fresh from some demolition jobs of their own, seven put past Celtic and five past Leganes. Against the former, Barca were so sublime that Brendan Rodgers said "you can put as many players as you want there" and it makes next to no difference. Enrique added: "There's little they [opponents] can do to stop it when we play with this precision."

It's that precision that has derailed Atleti. Week after week, Simeone's players have grown accustomed to asphyxiating their rivals in Spain, but the Catalans have always wriggled free, just enough.

The Atletico boss has tinkered with his method in response—he's used a 4-3-3 and variations of 4-4-2; he's switched around his strikers and wide men; he's alternated between ambushing and waiting, between pressing and retreating—but it hasn't been enough, not domestically.

"They don't often mess up," said Simeone in January. 

Alex Caparros/Getty Images

The simple answer is that's what supreme talent does. Messi, Suarez, Neymar and Andres Iniesta represent a nightmare for anyone. Atleti are no different in this respect, but what's also true is that Barca use Simeone's strength against him. 

The Argentinian's method is based on the control of space. The idea is to push teams to where there's little, into tight corners, simultaneously blunting the opposition and opening the pitch for themselves. But Barca are unique: they know that, from tight spaces, space exists beyond them. More than anyone, then, they're comfortable where Atleti try to put them. "They are the toughest rivals we have," said Torres. 

Not just the toughest, though. Maybe the biggest, too, at least right now. 

Though their rivalry with Real Madrid is the one that has consumed Atletico throughout their history, Atleti vs. Barcelona has had greater ramifications lately. In two of the last three seasons, the title has been won in this fixture, and the clashes have almost equalled the Clasico in terms of what their results mean for the race.

But it hasn't always been this way. For a long time, Atleti vs. Barcelona was a fixture characterised by flurries of goals and entertainment but not necessarily consequence. A glance at the pre-Simeone results shows scorelines of 5-2, 4-3, 6-1, 4-2, 6-0, 3-1, 2-2, 3-3 and more. Atleti were on the wrong end of most of those, but it also wasn't the war; the one with Real was. Not now, though. 

Simeone hasn't been beaten in the league by his Madrid neighbours in the last three seasons. In February, he became the first visiting manager in history to win three straight games at the Santiago Bernabeu, his hold domestically over the capital's glamour boys now unquestioned. After Atleti endured 14 years and 25 games without a single win over Real between 1999 and 2013, it's a historic reversal. But now there's another battle that needs turning around. 

Simeone is yet to take three points from Barcelona in the league, and more than six years have passed since Atleti last did so. It's the itch for which they've had no scratch. Does Nash's true happiness await them on Wednesday?

Blockbuster Clusters

They say you can have too much of a good thing, but Oscar Wilde took no notice of that. "Moderation is a fatal thing," he said. "Nothing succeeds like excess." If Wilde had been around this week, you'd imagine he would have given a nod of approval to LaLiga's cluster of blockbusters. 

Even before a ball is kicked between Barcelona and Atletico, Sevilla and Real Betis will have contested the Seville derby on Tuesday and Real Madrid will have tackled the other member of last season's top four in Villarreal earlier on Wednesday evening. 

In a midweek round, they're significant—or for the cynics, a little too convenient—drawcards for an international audience that won't be occupied with other leagues.

In a way it's problematic, though. Clusters such as these prevent the spread of heavyweight clashes across the calendar. It will be the same in Week 9, when Barcelona will tackle Valencia on the same weekend that Sevilla meet Atletico, that Deportivo La Coruna and Celta Vigo meet in the Galician derby, and that Real Madrid contest one of the league's grand old fixtures with Athletic Bilbao. But it's also slobber-all-over-it stuff at the time.

The LFP scheduling gods have done their part, now it's up to the football itself. Can it deliver the excess that would have aroused Wilde?

You can bank on Barcelona vs. Atletico doing so, and Villarreal have been a pest to the lot from the Bernabeu in recent seasons. It's just whether or not the Seville derby will be more demolition derby than anything else. 

"I want to live up to what the fans want," said Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli on Monday. Those fans want goals, but in arguably the most heated derby in Spain, they're not averse to a little mortal combat either, and that's what they got last season. December's 0-0 draw featured bugger all football but a whole lot of feet.

"The players and the benches enjoying kicking seven shades of s---e out of each other," said AS in the middle of it. 

Not to Be Missed

• Pako Ayestaran says he's "totally capable of turning this around," but that might not be his call. Valencian sports daily Superdeporte (h/t Sport) reported before Valencia's clash with Athletic on Sunday that the club would consider a change if Los Che didn't take points from San Mames. They didn't. This is a club unravelling, one that doesn't know the answers because it hasn't first identified the questions. After the loss to Athletic, the fourth straight to start the season and seventh straight dating back to last, club legend Mario Kempes was telling the world on Twitter he'd take the job. It's hard to see why anyone would want it. On Thursday, Valencia tackle Alaves at home. We reckon you already know how this one plays out. 

• It's not quite happening for Espanyol, and that matters. Under new, ambitious ownership, Catalonia's other club made a bit of splash this summer in what is hoped to be the first phase of a push up the table. But four games in, Espanyol are winless, and though they've had a tough schedule with games away to Sevilla and at home to Real Madrid, two points from 12 doesn't cut it. Manager Quique Sanchez Flores will have also caught his owners' attention by saying his club "has a withdrawn mentality, which is associated with losing." They travel to Pamplona to take on Osasuna on Thursday. 

Follow @TimDCollins