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Sid loweWriter from Spain
Zinedine Zidane of Real Madrid has gone from you are going to resign to Are you going to be Alex Ferguson? in seven days.
The answer, in case you were wondering, was no. Both times. A lot has happened in a week and it’s not over yet. There is one more match to come tomorrow night and it may be the biggest of all: a decent derby against a worthy opponent, as they demanded so many years ago. Against a team, in fact, that right now are better than they are. But it seems that this is how Real Madrid likes it.
– Zidane: Atlético are La Liga favorites
– Conclusions of the Champions League: Does the League look weak?
– FC 100: How many Atlético, Real players did it?
If the loss to Shakhtar Donetsk in Kiev last week was a portrait of Madrid’s decline – as one headline read last Wednesday – “Valdebebas vs. Borussia Monchengladbach” this Wednesday was a picture of their resurgence, the mood changed dramatically.
After last week’s defeat, Madrid were on edge, facing the prospect of being eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League for the first time. Defeated by Alavés before that, Real were also seven points off the top of the table at the national level. Worse still, they were six points behind neighboring Atlético de Madrid, despite having played two more games. And Atlético looked ominously good, winning every game. In other words, they were potentially 12 points off.
December had just started and Madrid’s season had already ended. It would be if they continued like this, anyway. And the week ahead could end her.
Twelve points less? How about 15, or even 18? And with the doors of Europe closed too?
Madrid had to go to Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, where it feels as if they always beat them, and face an impressive Sevilla that had prioritized the League over their encounter with Chelsea. He then had to face group leader Borussia Monchengladbach, with a place of eighth on the line, and then came Atlético de Madrid, undefeated in 25 games. Diego Simeone’s men had killed Barcelona, many thought; now they would have the opportunity to do the same with Madrid.
As for Zidane, it seemed unlikely that he would go ahead. At the end of that defeat in Ukraine, the first question was direct: you are going to resign? As if the decision is even yours. In the boardroom, they were furious. I was on the brink, and make no mistake: this was not a press speech, this was a “president’s speech.”
“I feel strong,” Zidane said a few days later, “but I know where I am.” Oh, it tastes good.
Even he was not untouchable. “I never felt like it was, ever,” Zidane said. “Not as a player, coach or person.” He knows that even the morning he won a third consecutive Champions League final, the men above him were openly questioning him. He had won that day and then he was gone. He had walked again because they needed him (he had said no the first time, before they convinced him), but there was no immunity.
When asked if this was the most difficult moment of his managerial career, he admitted that yes, yes, it was. And yet, he added, he had been here before.
This week would define his season. December 9 was “D-Day,” they said. Or, if not, December 12 would be. “We’re going to get over this,” ZIdane insisted.
They did too. Again. Madrid seems to work better under pressure, everyone agreed. Sometimes it can seem like they need something special to get going, some danger to get the best out of them, a little danger to get the juices flowing. Great occasions, not small ones.
On Saturday he won in Seville. On Wednesday they beat Borussia. On Saturday they face Atlético. And this feels different now.
“When we feel like it, no one can hurt us,” Karim Benzema said after the 2-0 win over ‘Gladbach. “We wanted to show that we are the best.”
1:41
ESPN FC’s Ale Moreno credits Diego Simeone with seeking out his defense to lead Atleti into the knockout rounds of the UCL.
Maybe there was something else they wanted to show: their support for Zidane. This was a reaction; it was also a rescue mission. Every time there has been an ultimatum: think Istanbul, think classic, thinks Inter, has gotten up and postponed it. Now comes the final stage. And even if he is no longer decisive in terms of the coach’s future, it may be because of his hopes of retaining the league title.
Except it’s no longer looming as a threat. Obligation has turned into opportunity. This, the third game in a week that was to define his season, now feels completely different: where there was fear, the terrible prospect of Atlético to end him and culminate a calamity, here is hope that they can find in their rival city with the final phase of his recovery. Whether that is really a good thing for them may be a completely different matter.
There’s the emotion, the symbolism, the story, all those intangibles. But then there is something simpler. And simply put, Atlético is the best team in Spain right now.
At the top of the table, Atlético is the only team that has not been defeated. They haven’t been that well positioned in the title race since they won the double in 1996. They weren’t that well positioned in terms of points when they won the league six years ago. They have lost points only twice, winning eight of 10 games. Their goal difference is over 19. That’s 14 goals better than Madrid.
Oh, and they’ve conceded just two goals in 900 minutes of football.
Let’s say it again: two. In 10 games.
Not even time mattered: Granada went to five goals when they conceded, two to Osasuna when they let one in. They haven’t been defeated this season, no; They have not even been left behind. Or put another way: Real Madrid conceded more goals in 40 minutes against Alavés than Atlético has conceded all season. And Atlético has annotated more too.
0:32
Zinedine Zidane suggests that he will not be a long-term coach at Real Madrid and is only looking at the short term.
A year ago, these pages asked if Atlético could evolve; 12 months later, it looks like they really could have. Some of the old “they” are there, and that defensive record, curiously broken in Europe, is the classic Simeone, but now there is something else, something good. More possession, more control, more variety.
Joao Félix is different, possibly the best player in Spain this season. If he isn’t, maybe Marcos Llorente is, the boy with the Madrid heritage who becomes a revelation at Atlético. And then there is Luis Suárez.
Koke is in his prime and in the middle again. Ángel Correa is playing well. Yannick Carrasco, do you remember? – he’s actually back. Even Thomas Lemar is playing well. He scored last week: it was his first goal in 20 months, in case you doubted the transformative power of this team.
This may be the best chance for Atlético to win the League. It may be the best opportunity they ever had, including the seasons that they actually did. All over Spain, people are going crazy to declare them candidates.
Candidates? No. Favorites. Atlético will never say that, but everyone else will. In fact, it’s been quite strange to watch: a kind of desperation to tag them as favorites, met with his kind of desperation to reject her again. You’re the best, no we are notyou, if you are, no, we are not.
Given the position they are in, undefeated, six points ahead, two games in hand, it’s natural. They’re being tagged as favorites because, well, because they are. But that is not the only reason. Winning this weekend, going 15 potential points ahead of Madrid and it will be inevitable, which may be part of the point.
It is not the Atlético fans who project them as the team with the best chance of winning the League. If there has ever been a team that has felt the pain of hope destroy it, it is them. They were called El Pupas, el gafado, for a reason. This is the club that has experienced more false sunrises than Truman Burbank. Until Simeone arrived, that’s what they did. That broke it, except for the European Cup final … against Madrid. There, cruelty reached new heights. (Or are they depths?) Nobody wants to tempt fate again.
They know that they should not wait, that they should not accept the expectations of others. They knew that they should not trust the rumors of a crisis throughout the city, so much so that it may even seem that, despite all the confidence that the last two results have given to Madrid, Athletic fans were comforted by the fact that their rivals won again, perhaps even welcoming it.
It was confirmation of what they knew, and what they had experienced so painfully before, but others seemed to ignore: Madrid is never left for dead. It was a very public demonstration that their rivals are still a fearsome team; it was also an opportunity to reject the favoritism and obligation imposed on them by outsiders. It was Zidane going from the man who should leave now, to the man who should never leave and therefore no longer needs a family mission to rescue his players.
Above all, Atlético knows that it should not trust those who grant them the status of favorites. Mostly because they don’t trust those people absolutely. They are suspicious of ulterior motives, and while the refusal to embrace reality can be comical at times, they may not be entirely wrong.
This is not pure, they suspect, and it is not praise; it’s pressure. Compliments are debilitating. It is a means of saying: See? We said you could play better soccer, a way to break Simeone’s mantra, the first rule of his management: match by match, game by game, inch by inch. It’s a way of forcing Atlético to win the derby, telling them that they shouldn’t aspire to beat Madrid, but wait for it. It is making winning a title normal and losing it a failure.
In short, he is loading the burden on Atlético. After all, the theory goes, it is difficult to respond when it is not enough to want to win; you to have win, anything else a failure. Nobody wants to live with that pressure.
Nobody, perhaps, except Real Madrid, who cannot live without him.
