Atlético’s Wake-Up Call: Griezmann’s Performance and Celtic’s Intensity (REUTERS)

Griezmann during Atlético’s match against Celtic (REUTERS).

Simeone has made it clear on several occasions. “It is difficult for us in the Champions League, we lack intensity.” The Argentine understands that Atlético must play at a higher pace when it goes out to compete in Europe. Not against the leading teams of the Old Continent, where they rarely do not compete, but against those who on paper are one step below. It happened last season against Bruges and Bayer Leverkusen. And this season Celtic joins the list of clubs with that profile that have given Simeone’s team a wake-up call (2-2). The Scots, who had lost their two previous Champions League games, put more speed into the game and it was enough for them to take Atlético ahead in the first half to earn their first point of the European season.

Atlético returned to Celtic Park, the place that shaped the Colchonero identity and where it emerged victorious from the well-known Battle of Glasgow half a century ago. Nothing has changed in the mythical Scottish fiefdom. The locker room tunnel is just as narrow, the You’ll never walk alone continues to echo in the stands that receive their team under an imposing atmosphere. The layers of paint on the walls and the play of disco lights reveal the modernity of today’s football. But the atmosphere is still shocking. As was Vicente Calderón’s.

The grass on which Ayala, Panadero, Irureta, Heredia and the rest of the players wrote their names in the history of Atlético, was stepped on by Simeone’s team with an unprecedented name in the starting eleven: Javi Galán. The former Celta player paid for the hazing the first few times. Brendan Rodgers, aware of the news, ordered Maeda, O’Riley and McGregor to strike on that side. It was the latter who gave Furuhashi over to crown a lofty wall that the aforementioned Atlético player did not reach. He reacted late. By the time he understood that he had to follow and hinder Furuhashi just enough, the Japanese had already beaten Oblak.

This is how the ‘Battle of Glasgow’ between Atlético and Celtic is remembered 50 years later: “I saw the Police beat my teammates.”

Rodgers had found the key to storm the game. On Galán’s back were the seams of an Atlético that he suffered with each lateral cross. So Simeone’s men decided to put the ball on the grass and play their weapons. Little by little they shook off the Scottish intensity. De Paul connected with Molina, who Taylor knocked down inside the area. Griezmann missed his shot, but fortune granted him a second chance. He picked up Hart’s rebound and changed his suit. Impossible for the veteran English goalkeeper.

Atlético celebrated little. Three minutes later, another Japanese player punished the backs of his defenders. Maeda won over Molina and switched to the left wing where Palma had done the same with Galán. The Honduran shot Oblak and once again overtook the Scots. With very little, Celtic hurt Atlético. I just had to get to the area. Simeone shook the shaker by introducing Riquelme and Llorente instead of Saúl and a Galán who was suspended in his debut in the Champions League.

Rodgers had decided to move the bench and bring on a defender to try to tie up the result, but by the time the substitution could be made Morata had already tied the game after a great cross from the recently introduced Llorente. Atlético grew and little by little they closed in on Celtic and silenced a stadium that roared when De Paul was sent off with ten minutes remaining after a tackle that in 1974 would have been a joke. With the Argentine’s last run towards the locker room, the red and white offensive disappeared. Everything ended in a draw and with both teams placing their last battle in Madrid, like fifty years ago.

2023-10-25 22:47:47
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