/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/HPIUCV4RHSCSDZOKNCPDIUFGVA.jpg "Atlético: Trippier’s ‘forbidden’ preparation | sports")
“Who would have told us that the loss of a right-back was going to be so important!” Exclaims an Atlético de Madrid manager about the impact caused by the 10-week sanction that KieranTrippier has served (Bury, England; 30 years ) for his involvement in a case of gambling related to his transfer from Tottenham to Atlético in the summer of 2019. The English international provided, to relatives and acquaintances, privileged information that was used by them to bet on insurance that his destiny would be the club rojiblanco.
The English side, who during the sanction was able to play a match – on January 12 against Sevilla (2-0) – due to the precautionary measures granted by FIFA, will reappear in this Sunday’s derby without competition, but not preparation together with his companions. The punishment imposed on him by the English Football Federation (FA) also disqualified him from doing so by prohibiting any activity related to football, but Atlético has shielded itself from the fact that the FIFA resolution that extended the sanction to the world level did not specify this last prohibition. The FA has insistently tried, without success, to get FIFA to prevent Trippier from training at the rojiblanco club’s facilities.
This has been the latest chapter in a convulsive process in which Trippier’s interests, as an English international, collided with Atlético’s. The punishment times imposed by the FA, from December 23 to February 28, meant that his absence would only affect Atlético and not the English team, which will begin to dispute the qualification for the Qatar World Cup in 2022 in the next window March 25. The sanctioning period also benefited Chelsea, an English club, which played the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 without Atlético being able to count on Trippier.
The player’s refusal to file an appeal with the FA disciplinary bodies left Atlético’s legal services unable to prosper their appeal before the Lausanne Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) to grant new precautionary measures and that the sanction only have effects in England. Trippier’s acceptance of his punishment prevented the process from being delayed and this would have jeopardized his participation in the March matches of the English team and even in this summer’s European Championship. Trippier defends that in no case did he intend to harm Atlético, but the sequence of events shows that the club has been harmed by not appealing its sanction to the FA.
Extra-community from June 30 and automatic renewal
In his absence, Simeone has struggled to find a replacement to fit the three-center, two-back system that he designed, in part, to reinforce the defensive weakness that Trippier displayed earlier in the season. The coach put Marcos Llorente ahead. The solution also ended up yielding an attacking connection that Vrasljko was unable to reproduce. Even when Llorente has been used as a second pivot alongside Koke, many of his offensive movements continued to seek the wake of his partnership with the English side. Llorente himself has been alienated in the Englishman’s position, but even Simeone himself has admitted that the ex-Madridista loses much of his offensive potential as a lane. “Trippier is a very complete full-back who has improved defensively with Simeone and who arrives well up to cross. “Says Romanian Cosmin Contra, former Atlético right back. “He gives balance in defense and has a good footing. In the end, when it comes to balanced templates, it is because of cases like this. You lack the right back, which seems to be not an important position, and with the passage of the games you notice his absence a lot, ”warns Delfi Geli, who occupied the demarcation in the rojiblanco team that conquered the League and the Cup in 1996 and who is now president of Girona.
Brexit will cause Trippier to occupy one of the three allowed extra-community positions from June 30, now only occupied by the Brazilians Felipe and Lodi after the Uruguayan Sanabria’s departure to Zaragoza. At Atlético they affirm that this will not be inconvenient for him to fulfill his contract, which ends in June 2022. Even the club ensures that it has an automatic renewal clause if it reaches a minimum number of games in its last season.
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