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Convinced that João Félix had finally internalized his script, Diego Pablo Simeone proclaimed at the end of last year and at the beginning of this one: “João and ten more”.
Two months after the start of the season, the Portuguese attacker will join this Wednesday at the Metropolitano, in the decisive match against Brujas (18.45, Movistar LC), his fourth consecutive substitution.
The last appearance of the Portuguese in the eleven was in the defeat in the derby against Real Madrid (0-2).
At the end of that meeting, Simeone bit his tongue when asked why Griezmann and João Félix had not connected as they had done five days before in the minutes that coincided in Leverkusen.
The coach merely replied unwillingly that, indeed, the two players had not played a match, but his disappointment at the performance of the Portuguese striker was capital.
Since then, João Félix is the team's fifth striker.
He played three minutes against Sevilla, ten against Bruges and 20 against Girona, always as the last change.
As companions of Morata, Correa, Griezmann, already released to play more than half an hour, and Cunha have surpassed him.
The player feels that he has been singled out again after a defeat against Madrid and the coach understands that his performance has not been as expected after having granted him up to seven starts before relegating him to being the last option among the forwards.
Already before the match with Madrid, Simeone disliked João Félix's attitude the first time he put him on the bench this season.
He went against Celta and the decision was a mere matter of rotations.
With 3-1 in favor, Simeone gave him entry to try to reinforce the player's confidence if he scored a goal in the half hour that was granted to him.
In Simeone's eyes, the luso's reluctance was latent.
His performance against Madrid ended up burying him.
In that duel,
João Félix did not feel comfortable acting as a reference and playing with his back to Militão and Alaba and with the Madrid midfielders very attentive to cutting off the passing lanes towards him.
At halftime, Simeone corrected himself and gave him more freedom to get out of that position during the quarter of an hour that kept him on the field after the break.
The defeat in the derby caused Cholo his umpteenth return to the origins, as every time the results do not accompany him and in that more concrete version of the team João Félix has no place.
Simeone is aware of the player's anger at his substitutions and sent him a message after the victory against Girona when he was questioned by Correa, who scored the two goals that gave Atlético the victory.
“Ángel [Correa] took advantage of his opportunity.
This is football, this is belonging to a team, when it's your turn to play and when you enter the field, show why you claim to play beyond being angry or not, "emphasized the coach.
This is João Félix's fourth season at Atlético and the doubts that his signing already generated have been reproduced again.
Not even the coach blindly believes in the player and he even less believes in the coach's proposal.
Only the efforts of the largest shareholder, Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, in the face of the most expensive investment in the club's history —126 million euros—, has prevented him from leaving in the last two summer markets.
It will be difficult for the rojiblanco boss to be able to stop Jorge Mendes again, the player's manager.
This has already heard on several occasions the soccer player's request to get him out of Atlético because he considers that with Simeone the explosion of him as a top international player will be difficult.
Both have tried again at the beginning of this season, but reality says that it is mixing oil and water.
“He has not found the goal and that frustrates him”
The substitution of João Félix was the central issue of Simeone's press conference prior to the duel with Bruges.
"Nothing has changed, only that there are players who are better than him," replied the Argentine when he was asked if he had changed anything to go from starter to fifth striker.
“The numbers are there to see.
In this period he has not been able to meet the most important thing that he understands, which is the goal, and that possibly causes frustration in his game, ”reflected Simeone, who dropped that the Portuguese does not always think about the team.
“He is working well, he did a good training and based on that line of getting involved in what is important, which is the team, everything else will come”.
Finally, with a certain camouflaged irony about his share of responsibility in the player's performance, he concluded: "Anything bad he does,
is that I make it even worse.
All the frustration that he has, means that I have not been able to give him what he needs to show the talent that he has”.
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