Atletico Madrid Need to Embrace the Sense of Occasion in Huge Madrid Derby

At the risk of sounding like one of those Christmas-themed commercials that are increasingly infiltrating our television screens, this isn’t just any old Madrid derby. It’s a big Madrid derby.

Atletico and Real face off in what will be their last league meeting at the Vicente Calderon on Saturday evening, under the famous old stadium’s floodlights. Depending on Copa del Rey and UEFA Champions League progress, it could be the last “El Derbi madrileno” to be staged there.

Estadio La Peineta awaits for the red-and-white-clad hordes next season, but there is a looming and increasingly pertinent question over just what sort of Atletico team will play at the club’s new stadium.

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The international break has brought a fresh round of questions surrounding the future of their star player, Antoine Griezmann, who has been linked with Manchester United in publications such as the Mirror (via the Daily Star). The Frenchman's injury, which makes him doubtful for the game, has hardly lightened the mood.

Throw in the defeat to Griezmann’s old club, Real Sociedad, before the international break, and this would have felt like a long two weeks for Atletico fans. The fact that the fixture they look forward to the most lies at the end of it would only have increased anticipation.

And they look forward to it so much because, by and large, their team does well in it.

In league combat alone, manager Diego Simeone is unbeaten in his last six derbies; in all competitions, the Atletico boss has only lost three of his last 13 matches against Real Madrid. It just so happened that two were Champions League finals.

The pain of the penalty-shootout loss in Milan—coming so soon after 2014’s agonising defeat in Lisbon—may never leave Atletico’s charismatic boss.

The unusual move to shorten his contract earlier this season suggests that the long goodbye to Atletico and the club’s fans has finally begun. He will lead them into their new stadium next season, but that looks to be his only campaign in the home dugout there. And then when he goes, plenty of the club’s star players could follow him.

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And all of that must weigh on the minds of supporters who know that the security and almost-guaranteed progress Simeone has brought to the role virtually ever since he was appointed in December 2011 has a timer placed on it. These could be the best times they’ll experience for a while.

But at the same time, none of that will matter on Saturday night. Or at least it should all be channeled into what promises to be one of the best atmospheres in European football so far this season.

Real Madrid arrive on top of the table. As usual, they’ll swagger over to the Calderon with all the confidence of a side believing they are best in their city—and they have the trophies to prove it.

And given that these have been the two teams who contested two of the last three Champions League finals, the Madrid derby has long since stopped being just a local squabble—it has a global impact now.

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For Atletico, it has always been about getting one over on a club their fans have been forced to watch lifting trophy after trophy over generations. When you grow up in Madrid, you make a distinct choice over which team to support; picking Atletico isn’t the easier option.

Atletico fans will have spent their childhoods among Real supporters who were always celebrating the latest triumph or glorying in the storied players Los Blancos were able to buy. Such stories would have been all the more difficult to digest when Atletico were in the second tier, as they were at the beginning of this century.

There’s no glory down there, and nor is there the chance to bloody the noses of football royalty and see that blood (metaphorically) spread across those famous white shirts.

It isn’t jealousy, it is more about a fierce identity and a desire to be seen as an independent force in a city that the whole football-watching world has come to associate with one club—the one that plays in all white.

And despite everything Los Rojiblancos have done in recent years—the great games, the great players, the league title, the Champions League finals, the sheer force of personality that emits from Simeone—that is still the same. Mention Madrid, and people think of Real, not Atletico.

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But the great thing about Madrid’s “other” club is just how they have come to embrace that underdog status over recent years. It has taken them so far and led to some stunning victories over their old enemy, such as the 4-0 league win in 2015 and the Copa del Rey final victory at Real’s own Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

Yet there Real were, lurking in both of the Champions League finals that Simeone was able to drag his Atletico team to.

Despite the good league record against them, Atleti would have preferred to face anyone else in those finals. The sense of destiny around Real—who were chasing their much-longed-for 10th European Cup in Lisbon, a stage set for Cristiano Ronaldo—was all-encompassing.

And all of this—the pain felt in those two finals, the idea of growing up right next to a football institution, the fact that this could be the last derby at the Calderon, meaning that everything will be different next season—needs to be tapped into on Saturday.

Atletico need a good result with or without Griezmann, because a defeat would leave them nine points behind their city rivals.

That is a huge total in La Liga terms. Through the leadership of Simeone, Atletico have hauled themselves into a position where being nine points behind Real should never be considered, let alone tolerated.

It is inevitable that Zinedine Zidane’s side will be in the title race, and going that far behind them this early looks like a huge error.

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To avoid doing that, Atletico are going to have to tap into all of the nervous energy surrounding the club and put all concerns over the future—and the futures of both Simeone and Griezmann seem inexorably linked to each other and indeed Atletico’s progress—to one side.

They have to make the last league derby at the Calderon a match that will be talked about long after the team have moved into La Peineta—a game to tell the grandchildren about.

Atletico are great at creating such stories. They just need to hope that well hasn’t run dry as they regroup, line up and look their great rivals in the eye once more.