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Atlético Madrid are Spanish soccer champions: this time the others are crying

2021-05-23T13:26:06.008Z


Atlético Madrid dispels historical fear of failure and Luis Suárez is crying and celebrating a personal triumph: the eleventh championship of a club in which hardly anything goes without drama.


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Coach Diego Simeone celebrates the championship with his players

Photo:

JUAN MEDINA / REUTERS

It wasn't easy, of course not. At Atlético Madrid nothing is easy because nothing is easy in life, and Atlético claims to be like life. Even if there is only one away game to be won against Real Valladolid, who have been in the table without a win for eleven games, to become Spanish champions. After 18 minutes of play, Atlético were 1-0 down. "That's when the head starts to think certain things, of course," said midfielder Marcos Llorente later.

Things like the fact that you still had a two-digit point advantage in winter.

That the rival in the long-distance duel for the Liga was Real Madrid, which in Spain in general and at Atlético in particular exudes this myth as in Germany Bayern Munich: that he always somehow gets it bent on his side.

During the tenure of the current Atlético coach Diego Pablo Simeone alone, they lost a Champions League final against their city neighbors in extra time after leading up to the 93rd minute (2014), and one on penalties (2016).

And are you not the club of the »Pupas« - the »Aua« - as the then President Vicente Calderón named it in famous words in 1974, after an equally tragic European Cup final defeat by Bayern?

So the club that always cries in the end?

Simeone has again succeeded in creating a masterpiece

After the lead for Valladolid, club legend Paulo Futre left his place in the stands, he already didn't want to look anymore. Simeone watched the helpless attack kneeling on the lawn and clasped his hands over his head. You thought you could feel your heads smoking. And blocked. Atlético's first half ended with a free kick that was supposed to be struck high into the box, as in the showdown, but the ball flew horizontally across the pitch into touch.

How it worked out in the end, how Atlético was the 11th Spanish champion an hour later? Simeone played a big role, maybe he achieved a masterpiece similar to the last title in 2014, when he led the club from mediocrity to the top. For weeks he managed to calm the nerve bundles in red and white decisively again and again. Since it had consumed its record lead, every game for Atlético has been a struggle for survival against the trend. Against Osasuna last Sunday they conceded a deficit in the 77th minute, but turned the game around in the 82nd and 88th minutes. Even at halftime in Valladolid, Simeone reached the heads again, without hysteria, with clear instructions.

Real also did their neighbors a favor: They exaggerated their myth of late comebacks and saved their goals for the home win against Villarreal for the final phase. When it could have increased Atlético's fear of failure even more, it first fell behind. The 57th minute then advanced to the soft spot in the dramatic split-screen finale. While the video referee checked Karim Benzema's alleged equalizer in Madrid (and finally rejected it because of offside), Ángel Correa broke through Valladolid's massive defensive block with a fantastic individual performance including a finish with the pike. In the first relief, Luis Suárez used a playback error of the relegated team with a sovereign finish to 2-1; this still wobbled afterwards, but did not fall.

Suárez howled long after the final whistle

So Suarez.

He had already scored the redeeming goal last week.

His 21 goals this season won several of these typically tough Atlético games that would have ended in a draw in recent years.

And Suarez was also responsible for the crying despite the final triumph.

The 34-year-old howled long after the final whistle as he sat on the lawn and phoned his family. More clearly than ever before, he showed how much the disembarkation from his heart club FC Barcelona had hurt and driven him last summer. "I have a lot of things on my mind after everything I've been through and how I was disliked," he said. "Atlético opened the doors for me, and I will be eternally grateful to this club for that." Now he is the champion, not the old colleagues around Lionel Messi.

Simeone congenially accompanied Suárez's desire for revenge, one gets along across the Río de la Plata between Argentinians and Uruguayans, and one also understands football immediately, as a daily test of passion and pride. Tactically, on the other hand, Simeone used the classic qualities of the center forward Suárez to push Atlético's ranks further forward and to give the team a more offensive direction than usual for much of the season.

Where Suárez wept, Simeone laughed after the final whistle. A relaxed, radiant, almost crazy laugh - "I don't know either, it just came from within" - that didn't really fit his eternal whip image. But for which Simeone immediately found an explanation. “Today, in the loneliness before the game, I thought back to the afternoon when we left the (

old stadium

) Calderón (

2017

) and people asked if I would stay. And I said, 'Yes, I'm staying. Because this club has a future. ' I wasn't wrong. This club has a future «.

Atlético, this melodramatic club that is really often like life, and that even in its new era of success is sometimes haunted by old fears. With the championship they have achieved a first-class exorcism.

Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2021-05-23

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