Luis Suárez is the leader | What’s up people

Madrid, Jan 21 (EFE) .- There are several causes of the leadership of Atlético de Madrid this season, but none is as visible or as differentiating as Luis Suárez, the law that best supports the phenomenon this course of the rojiblanco team, so consistent in the top as described by his seven-point advantage, his 13 victories in the last 14 days, his 44 points out of 51 possible …

For the Uruguayan striker – eleven goals in 14 games in this League – the rojiblanco team not only lifted the 1-0 against goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic from a penalty in the 10th minute, for a maximum penalty committed by a Yannick Carrasco’s involuntary stomp, but instead unleashed his first comeback of the season, completed two minutes from the close by himself.

Nothing else has been behind Atlético on two occasions in this league. The former lost at the Alfredo Di Stéfano de Valdebebas stadium to Real Madrid (2-0); The second was resolved this Thursday in Ipurua against Eibar with a victory, which would not have been such, without a doubt, without Luis Suárez on the ground.

His punch is undeniable. It is a guarantee. It hardly needs chances. At the first, as so many other times, back in the 40th minute, after the step forward that his team had taken, when his team had transformed the initial expectation due to the ambition that is always assumed, he gave two touches and tied the match, also due to the indispensable double pressure of Marcos Llorente.

In ’88, when fate was directing him towards an apparently immovable draw, a ball from Yannick Carrasco was enough for Atlético’s ‘9’ to generate the victory almost out of nowhere: he controlled the ball and held on to Arbilla until he knocked him down inside the area, with the doubt whether the contact was enough, but with the certainty that Luis Suárez is also infallible from 11 meters. He launched it Panenka style to win a more than complex match.

How much is a scorer like him worth? It is incalculable today for Atlético. Luis Suárez causes victories that otherwise would not have been possible for the rojiblanco team, who even won a match that perhaps did not deserve it, in which he suffered blurred for many minutes, with nothing to argue for the victory … except the forward Uruguayan. It is the difference in this League.

Joao Félix did not start from the eleven (then he entered the field at rest). And that is less and less news in this League, at least in the last appointments, because he has been more substitute -five times- than starter -three- in the last eight available days, with influence, yes, between rotations by the Champions League in two of those five substitutions to which Simeone has recently relegated.

Nothing to do with its impressive start to the course. Neither in his performance nor in his goals – he has not scored in the championship since November, from 4-0 at Cádiz, and in no competition since December 1 against Bayern Munich – but neither in the confidence of his coach, so necessary for a footballer like him, nor in the condition of undisputed holder that does correspond to others. And the competition grows again: Moussa Dembélé is already another option.

On Tuesday, January 12, he arrived in Spain and on Wednesday the 13th he signed his contract with the rojiblanco club and began his training sessions that have culminated, already recovered from the fracture in his arm that he suffered in December, with his first call in his first opportunity, to adapt as soon as possible to his new team and his new coach in the sprint that awaits him in those six months of football.

It is a semester to stay (or revalue) at Atlético, which paid a million and a half euros for its transfer to Olympique Lyon and that a purchase option is saved at the end of the loan for a value of 33.5 million “at the that you can add incentives for 5 million “, as reported then by the French club, which, in that case, would save 10 percent of a future transfer to another team.

“I see him with enthusiasm, with desire, an area striker from whom we hope we can get what we have seen from him for Atlético de Madrid. He is working, trying to insert himself in the best way in the group, luckily he has teammates like Kondogbia, Carrasco, Lemar, who are approaching him for translation. We will have time to talk about what we need from him. These days we have let him join in, “said Simeone on the eve of the match, who did not give him minutes. It is difficult for him. Ahead is Luis Suárez.

Iñaki Dufour

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