Atletico Madrid's Derby Defeat Has Exposed a Calderon Identity Crisis
It wasn’t supposed to end like this. For the last Madrid derby at the Estadio Vicente Calderon in La Liga on Saturday night, Atletico’s fans had gathered in the streets around the old stadium hours before kick-off, chanting and waving red flares as the skies darkened.
When the teams finally appeared from the tunnel just before 8:45 p.m. local time, the huge tifo behind one of the goals bade its own fond farewell. “Nuestro legado sera eterno,” it read: Our legacy will be eternal.
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Unfortunately for Atleti, so will that be for Cristiano Ronaldo. Sporadically criticised for his less-than-lightning start to the season, he gave his best performance of the campaign for Real Madrid by some distance. And his hat-trick carved him a place in the Calderon’s history that will nag at Los Rojiblancos for eternity.
Any form of revenge at La Peineta, the club’s near-74,000 capacity new home from next season, won’t quite erase that.
That it was Ronaldo who did the damage was significant in more ways than one. It’s not only that he is deeply symbolic of what many believe Real Madrid to be about—peacocking, putting the individual on a pedestal. It wasn’t just that he put the finishing touch to each of Atleti’s Champions League finals heartbreaks from the penalty spot in 2014 and this year, clasping his shirt from his body to reveal that famously chiselled abdomen on both occasions.
It’s that when Real Madrid have suffered against Atleti under the charge of manager Diego Simeone, Ronaldo has too.
In May 2013, when they broke their 14-year hoodoo against El Real at the Santiago Bernabeu in an incendiary Copa del Rey final, the Portugal forward’s frustration boiled to the fore in extra time. He was sent off for swiping a reckless left boot in the face of Gabi, who is perhaps a virtual opposite to Ronaldo as a player but every bit as intertwined with the fabric of his club.
More recently, Ronaldo had not scored in six Liga games against Atleti—all of which Los Merengues had failed to win.
So while those European triumphs have meant everything (and let’s not forget the 2015 quarter-final, when Javier Hernandez's late goal at the Bernabeu dumped Atleti out in the quarter-finals), this was a huge step forward for El Real—and an unwelcome reminder of a less glorious, pre-Simeone past for Atleti.
That the result leaves Simeone’s team a whopping nine points behind their neighbours in La Liga is just one of a number of reasons why this setback is so hurtful.
Atleti are going through some changes at the moment, and those growing pains hurt—now more than ever. Talking on the occasion of his Bayern Munich side’s visit to the Calderon in September, Carlo Ancelotti said, per El Mundo Deportivo (link in Spanish), that Atleti’s style had not changed despite gaining a bit of speed in forward areas. But that’s not quite true.
Having ground their way to a host of trophies under Simeone, including the 2014 edition of La Liga and to within an inch of two Champions League titles, modern football’s equivalent of the San Antonio Spurs are attempting to spread their wings and—like their NBA counterparts—become a little more youthful and daring.
The kings of the 1-0 win are the third top scorers in La Liga this season, behind the inevitable pair of El Real and Barcelona, despite failing to score in three of their last four games.
Much has been made of Zinedine Zidane’s fine organisation of his team on Saturday night and—even if the coach’s reluctance to go anywhere getting into the nuts and bolts of tactics in press conferences led some to believe it’s perhaps more luck than judgement—his team were solid, compact, and smart.
It’s something that has been the case through most of the Frenchman’s still-nascent spell in charge, certainly since their last Liga defeat—to Atleti at the Bernabeu in February.
That reactive, rather than proactive, mindset of Zidane’s Madrid was particularly evident in the Champions League final in May. In many ways, El Real played more like Atleti than Atleti themselves did on that night in Milan. When they had taken the lead in the first half, it was even from a set piece, converted by Sergio Ramos—straight out of the Simeone playbook. The ultimate compliment, you might say.
That tautness was again present from the visitors on Saturday. With Atleti? Not so much. After a typical fast start, they lost control of the match to an alarming level, and they were second best for much of the first period. An energetic beginning to the restart failed to yield tangible reward, and they were picked off.
It’s hard not to look at Atleti’s shape and ask questions.
That attacking mindset was clear, with Yannick Carrasco on the flank to complement the strike pair of Antoine Griezmann and Fernando Torres. Whether the latter should have been included from the start ahead of Kevin Gameiro, who is building a potent partnership with fellow France forward Griezmann, is almost a moot point in the context of the overall team performance.
The midfield’s shape in particular, with implications in terms of protecting the defence, is of some concern.
None other than Atleti captain Gabi brought this up recently at the Premios Gredos awards ceremony, and he was reportedly rebuked by Simeone for doing so, per AS. His words about the team being more “fragile” and needing “to go back to being a strong team at the back” seemed simultaneously relevant and prophetic in the middle of the derby.
One can only speculate at the cause of Gabi’s clear frustration as he took to the bench after being substituted just after the hour mark. It could have been simple upset at being withdrawn, anger at losing or a sense of annoyance that his words had seemingly gone unheeded. Perhaps it was a bit of all three.
The point is that this wasn’t any old player expressing concern, or dissent, depending on your perspective. It wasn’t Griezmann lamenting the performance at promoted Leganes earlier in the season. It was so much more than that.
Gabi is perhaps the biggest symbol of "Cholismo"; a youth product, a former team-mate of Simeone and his assistant German Burgos when they were players here, and somebody who has thrived in a system that has made him achieve beyond what he must have dreamed possible. His words may have been out of turn, but they were pertinent; this Atletico are in danger of losing their identity.
Simeone has flirted with a more attacking style before, notably last season, but a shock home defeat to Benfica—who, again, "Atleti-ed" their hosts—made him pull up the drawbridge. One must admire the coach for sticking to his guns this time, and maybe that extra firepower could even help them over the Champions League hump come next spring.
Yet for now, there’s significant concern. Nothing stays the same for ever, but any apparent role reversal for El Real and Atleti would seem to be working out better for the men from the Bernabeu.
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