An Atlético after Reinildo

“The names do not make a team, but the men”. They were Simeone’s words back in September. The season had already started crooked despite presenting itself from different sources as the best squad in mattress history and Atlético’s defensive problems intensified. A team that carried a decade ago being a rock and that he watched helplessly as practically every arrival of the rival ends in a goal.

And the winter market was presented as an option to try to solve the problems behind. But, in a new setback, it was Trippier who said goodbye. The rojiblanco club sought recover from the departure of English with Wass and that premise that Simeone has always defended culminated at the last minute. Reinildo Mandava accelerated his incorporation previously signed for June and Atlético took control of a little-known winger in Spain, but with a fundamental defensive role so that Lille would have been proclaimed league champion a few months ago, on par with the rojiblanco team.

If the winter foci were concentrated by the Aubameyang, Ferran Torres, Lo Celso, Martial, even Wass himself or outside of LaLiga Vlahovic, Luis Dias, Bruno Guimarães and company, Reinildo’s performance has been immediate and key for Atlético to be in the next Champions League. Since his incorporation at the last minute in January, the rojiblanco team has played 21 games, where the Mozambican has participated in all of them. Substitute at the Camp Nou, making his debut with a 4-1 scoreline that ended up making up Suárez, Reinildo has been a starter in 19 of Atlético’s next 20 games. All except in the 2-1 victory against Espanyol, when he came on in the 58th minute. Not even the physical problems that forced him out of the derby in the last moments They took him away from the next mattress match against Elche.

Aggressiveness, strength, intensity, attention, help, commitment, humility, knowledge of its virtues, speed and a very fast adaptation There are several of the qualities that can be highlighted of the African, who improved the mattress defense as a third center back and at the end of the course returning to the left side, which has always been his natural position. He was even daring more and peeking into the rival area with the passing of the matches. And, although a defense is not sustained by a single player, being fundamental the return of Savic and Giménez to the center of the defense, Reinildo has contributed a peace that the data shows. In the 19 games that the 28-year-old has started, completing 14 of them, Oblak has conceded 14 goals (0.74 per game), an average much closer to what the goalkeeper has accustomed us to. Three of those 14 goals came in his first appearance in the eleven against Getafe.

Guridi’s goal in discount against Real Sociedad It was the second that Atlético received in the last four duels, a symptom of the final improvement with which the team has finished. In the 32 games in which he did not have Reinildo in the eleven, Oblak took the ball out of his net 43 times (1.34 per duel). Despite certifying his signing on January 31, the winger finished with 1,658 minutes played for rojiblanco, a figure above Vrsaljko, Cunha or Herrera despite the fact that they were in the squad the entire course. The winter signing with the most participation of Cholo. Reinildo has more than fulfilled that expected role in signing him. A silent incorporation, at the cost of balance, but with an immediate and basic performance so that Atlético has recovered sensations. It is still a coincidence, but it has had to be a newcomer who remembered the basic notions of cholismo.