Pre-Season Results Haven't Been Great, but Atletico Madrid Are Ready for 2016/17
There are no dress rehearsals from here on out, with Atletico Madrid a week away from opening what promises to be a fascinating La Liga season with a home match against newly promoted Alaves next Sunday.
Could the preparation have gone better? That won’t be revealed until next weekend, but the trip to Cadiz for the Ramon de Carranza Trophy would have at least sharpened minds and bodies, even if it didn’t deliver the trophy itself.
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On Friday, a late—and it is fair to say controversial—penalty ensured that the hosts Cadiz earned a 1-1 draw with Atletico, which meant that their clash went to a penalty shootout, where Fernando Torres, Yannick Ferreira Carrasco and Jose Gimenez all missed to hand victory to the hosts from the Segunda Division.
That can hardly be seen as appropriate preparation for the new campaign given how the old one ended for Diego Simeone’s side in Milan against Real Madrid, but nobody was taking defeat too harshly as they headed into the tournament’s third-place playoff match against a Nigerian All-Star team.
Again, that was a tough warm-up against a committed, physical side full of players looking to impress.
With Kevin Gameiro making his first start in Atletico colours, it was another new arrival, Nico Gaitan, who gave Atletico the lead with his second goal of pre-season in the first half.
The expected goal glut never arrived in the second period, though—and you can worry about that if you want, as the Nigerian team was beaten 4-1 by Malaga the previous evening—but after Abdulrahman Bashir grabbed a shock equaliser for the underdogs, it was left to Diego Godin to pop up a minute from time to win the match with his second goal of pre-season.
The first of those came against Tottenham in Australia right at the start of the summer, and it is probably right to say that the English side were the strongest opponents that Atletico faced over a pre-season which took them from Down Under to Italy, and not via Turkey as had been previously planned.
In Cadiz they were strong and organised, but crucially also fitter than they had appeared to be previously.
Simeone doubtlessly would have liked to give Antoine Griezmann some minutes as he steps up his recovery from a gruelling summer at Euro 2016, but his fitness will come on in what is likely to be a gruelling week ahead on the training pitch. Alaves at home is probably a fixture that he can be eased into anyway, and so it would be no surprise if he was to start the game on the bench next weekend.
The Argentinean coach started with two different XIs against both Cadiz and the Nigerian select side, opting to try to give as many of his players as possible a full 90 minutes and not bringing them off and leaving them with bit-part contributions.
And whilst obviously many would have expected them to come away from Cadiz with the trophy, no one was overly concerned.
The midfielder Saul Niguez—one of many in the Atletico squad set for a huge season—took a swipe at what some saw as a waste of time against the overly defensive Nigerian side when he told the official website: “There is never an inferior team because you get what you see on the pitch. It was a pity that there was so much wind in this tournament because we could not compete with the intensity that we would have wanted, although the feelings that we’ve had have been positive.”
Positive feelings, then, and the sense that the new additions are ticking along nicely as they get integrated into the group.
Gameiro—the headline arrival of the summer—was delighted to get his bow out of the way against the Nigerians, again telling the club website: “The most important thing was to win this match to get well to Sunday’s game. It's a great group. Atleti is like a big family. I’m very happy to be in this team.”
So far, so good then, and his mention of the Alaves game is a pertinent one.
If, as is looking increasingly possibly, Griezmann isn’t in the starting lineup for that one, then more of an onus will fall on his fellow Frenchman to find the net.
Crucially, he is a forward well-versed in the ways of La Liga, and so there should be no difficult bedding-in process as he looks to settle in the Spanish capital.
He’d have liked a goal on Saturday to get him up and running, but there will be no panic from Simeone or from Gameiro himself that one never arrived.
Indeed, the manager will be delighted that both Carrasco and Gaitan—and indeed Godin—have been finding the net in pre-season, especially with a greater onus on Atletico to score goals as they bid to achieve their various aims in the coming campaign.
Gaitan, in particular, has been a breath of fresh air, and he impressively followed up on his goal against Crotone earlier in pre-season with a well-taken strike here. His goals from midfield could be the difference between success and failure for Atletico this season, and the new signing from Benfica is taking the responsibility on his shoulders.
All that has been missing from Atletico’s pre-season is the sight of him being able to link up with both Gameiro and Griezmann in what will be a fairly exciting attacking trio, but that will come with time and isn’t something that Simeone and the club should be unduly worried about.
They certainly won’t be worried about not lifting the Ramon de Carranza Trophy, given that their eyes will already be on the far greater and far more important trophies which are out there.
Nobody remembers the pre-season results for too long anyway, and as the real stuff gets ready to begin, a toughened-up Atletico Madrid look primed and ready for an exciting campaign.
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