Photo par David S. Bustamante / Soccrates / .
The life of the star in a choral team is complicated. Much more in a choral team whose great figure is already on the bench and focuses all the attention. Atlético de Madrid in the last decade has never been “El Atleti de Griezmann” or “El Atleti de Diego Costa” or “El Atleti de Radamel Falcao”… No, Atleti is and will be. until things go wrong, “Atleti de Simeone“ And that has its pros and cons, of course. For example, you lose the first leg of the knockout stages of the Champions League and absolutely all the debate is centered on the coach. Too loose, too time-consuming, unable to change the scenario at any time according to the needs of the team? Simeone is such a big umbrella for its players that they don’t get wet by a raindrop in the middle of a storm.
There are those who took it better and those who took it less well. Take the case of Antoine Griezmann. Griezmann arrives from Real Sociedad as a talented midfielder, difficult to classify. While Álvaro Benito puts a lot of emphasis on shows where Griezmann is distinguished by his arrival, I’m not so clear about that. I don’t remember the particularly brilliant French door-to-door numbers. For me, Griezmann has stood out at Atlético de Madrid, gave the France team a world championship and is striving for a career at Barcelona due to his sense of survival. Simeone and Atleti taught him to survive, to place himself where he could be found and at the same time the rival could not detect him, to seek a life of stardom knowing that the team was not going to revolve around him, that no one was going to wear it. easy.
Griezmann came to Atleti as a great player and came out as a superstar. Simeone often comments on it with pride at press conferences. Now not everyone is Antoine Griezmann. For example, Joao Felix, this survival thing is shaking things up. The Portuguese are lucky that the umbrella still protects him, even excessively. If he plays badly, it is commented on in passing. If he plays well and they change him, it is once again the coach’s fault. Now Joao Felix, like Griezmann at the time, has been signed to make a difference. Do not put a team at his disposal, because that will never happen with Simeone on the bench and it should be well internalized, but to find a way to be differential without anyone explaining it. It’s been a year and a half and the mattress fan is getting more and more nervous. With reason.
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We know Joao Felix is a boy of impressive talent. A very young boy, barely 21 years old, who has just been the darling of Benfica fans. His signing was € 120m plus funding and stories. A signing that places Atlético de Madrid at the level of the big spending clubs in Europe, the last competitive level that remains.. Sometimes we wonder exactly what they were signing and why. It is often said that Joao “doesn’t run”. This is stupid. It is also now said of Griezmann at Barça. Joao runs more than he should, more than he will run when he finds his place, his movement and his moment. In the meantime, it shows too much that he is urgently seeking all of this.
Simeone can be criticized for not giving you any clues, but Simeone always seems busy in a business bigger than the fate of a single player. Logic. When you act like a lightning rod, you do well to have the sky fully controlled. That Joao will leave Atleti a better player than he arrived and that he will be a striker with a relevant career is not lost on anyone. The question is how does this benefit the Madrid fan. Will they see this upgraded version in the Metropolitan? Will they be thrilled with a perfect, round performance, typical of a 120 million signing like the one we saw against Salzburg at the start of the season, or will those performances be something specific, sporadic, almost accidental?
We would all love for Joao to throw the team at him, but what that means is unclear. How is a team that is not his going to get the better of him? It would take a lot more media time than Simeone himself can afford. No, it doesn’t seem that Joao Felix is this exuberant player, this benchmark leader. It doesn’t appear to be the point either. Making a difference in a team as solvent, as well organized as this Atlético de Madrid is, is simply to do the right thing when it is needed. For example in the Chelsea game? Yes, for example. We’re not asking for four dribbles and one goal for the team, because to do it once you have to try five, like Messi at Barca, and Atleti doesn’t play that. We are asking for a sense of danger, that you bring something that the other team cannot decode, that you are a special, different player, a “constant threat”, which has already been said.
Joao Felix is not. He has all the time in the world to be one but watch the weather in professional sports and much more in football. What he can not afford in any way is to settle in discouragement and sometimes there is a sad point in his game, official, with the arms sitting and a face of “I am asked to do. this and I do it ”. These gestures of resignation each time he is replaced. If you add to the natural talent the demand for a manager who will also come out in front of the press to take all the clubs every time the going goes wrong, it won’t take long to become an important player. Maybe not a YouTube player, maybe not a contender for I don’t know what spectacular prize, but a player who wins games. Because in the end you spend that money to win more games. Because you think Joao is going to fight you and not someone else. You have to adjust the pieces, just that, but you also have to try to put them together and not lose heart. His near-term future will depend on Joao’s (and Atleti’s fans) ability to not give up. In the middle, I have no doubts.
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