“In Lisbon I found joy again.” They are words of the forward of the Atlético de Madrid Joao Félix remembering his passage from the quarry of the Port to the Benfica, the club that took him to the European showcase a year ago and put him in the orbit of the rojiblancos. He will return to Lisbon with Atlético to play the Champions League, and Joao accelerates to shine at home.
It was not an easy season for the Viseu striker, who in his first season as a rojiblanco has not finished justifying the 126 million that Atlético paid to the Lisbon team in exchange for a 19-year-old footballer who amazed with 20 goals and 11 assists in 43 meetings with Benfica.
This season there have been eight goals and three assists in 35 rojiblanco matches, an irregular debut for a footballer who has not finished being comfortable on the pitch and has stumbled upon three injuries during the season: An ankle sprain in October (he missed six games), a muscle injury in February (four matchups) and an ankle bone edema a month ago that left him out of three of the last four league duels.
Once the league competition is parked, one last event opens on the horizon of the rojiblancos: the Champions League that this year due to the coronavirus pandemic will be resolved in an atypical ‘Final to Eight’ in Lisbon. The city that saw Joao Félix triumph will meet him again, now dressed in red and white.
Despite the start of the mini-season that Atlético's coaching staff has designed for its players by having several sessions on the sidelines of their teammates, the Portuguese forward has chained hard training sessions with the group the last two days, and accelerates in search of a gap for be a protagonist at home.
Although not in the initial plans of his coach, the Argentine Diego Pablo Simeone, to begin the quarterfinal match on August 13 against the German RB Leipzig – last Saturday he rehearsed with a forward formed by Diego Costa and Marcos Llorente, the great irruption of the end of the season with his move from midfield to the front- Joao Félix works to offer himself as an alternative in the remaining nine days.
JOSÉ ALVALADE AND A GERMAN RIVAL, OWN TERRITORY
Atlético will play the pass to the semifinals at the José Alvalade in Lisbon, the territory of Sporting de Portugal, historical enemy of Benfica Joao Félix and who scored his first professional goal in the Portuguese League: the one that led to a 1-1 draw for Benfica in August 2018.
The great night of Joao Félix In the Alvalade it was in February 2019, in the derby corresponding to the twentieth day in which Benfica thrashed their eternal rival with a 2-4. The Viseu playmaker scored the second goal of the Swiss pass duel Haris Seferovic and caused the four goal when receiving a penalty scored by a former rojiblanco player, the winger Luis Miguel Afonso ‘Pizzi’.
The duel on August 13 will be against a German team, RB Leipzig, and the young Portuguese striker also has a good memory against a Teutonic team: the triplet that endorsed him Eántracht de Fránkfurt in the quarterfinals of the Europa League, the earliest by a Portuguese striker in history, also with an assist for Rúben Dias in a match that ended 4-2 in the first leg, although Benfica would be eliminated after falling 2-0 in Frankfurt on the return leg.
If Atlético overcome the crossing against Leipzig, they will meet the winner of the Atalanta-Paris Saint-Germain at Da Luz, the Benfica stadium, which will also be the scene of the final. A place where a year ago Joao He was the young idol of the f eagles ’benfiquistas and where his current club wants to shake off the nightmare of the final lost against Real Madrid in 2014. The roads come together so that Joao and Atlético regain joy in Lisbon.