Atlético always add challenges to their successes from the previous season. The idea of continuing to improve grows after a magical year in LaLiga, where the title was won, Oblak was Zamora and the rojiblanco team showed an enormous evolution in their football.
If repeating the feat seems complicated, Atlético has managed to preserve its champion spine and add pieces of great value such as Griezmann, De Paul and Cunha to be able to dream big. And, without abandoning match by match, there are also great challenges in the individual section. Simeone seeks to become the first coach to get three leagues in charge of Atlético, Oblak struggles to become the only goalkeeper with six Zamora awards (It is equaled to Valdés and Ramallets with five) and the mattress forwards aspire to to be able to fight for a Pichichi that only Diego Forlán has achieved in the entire XXI Century.
The Uruguayan scored 32 goals (in 33 games) in LaLiga 2008-09, which served to proclaim himself the top scorer in the competition and Golden Boot, the second of his career. A milestone that he had not seen himself at Atlético since Vieri in the 1998-99 academic year, when his 24 league goals in 24 games served to finish as top scorer in the category before returning to Italy. Since then, Neither the great years of Agüero, Falcao, Diego Costa, Griezmann or Luis Suárez served them to approach the award.
After Forlán took his second top scorer trophy (in 2004-05 he had shared it with Eto’o as a Villarreal player) The dynasty between Messi and Cristiano arrived, two scorers who changed the history of Spanish football. A duopoly since 2009 in which only Luis Suárez himself could interfere, that with his 40 goals for Barcelona in the 2015-16 season he also added his second Golden Boot. Since that year, Messi has won the award for the last five years, surpassing in four of them thirty goals. But the Argentine has said goodbye to LaLiga and the figure of maximum has remained more open than ever.
Forlán poses with the Golden Boot obtained with Atlético.
SUSANA VERA (REUTERS)
Without Messi, everything open
Last season Messi reached 30 goals. Benzema and Gerard Moreno were their first pursuers with 23, with Luis Suárez in fourth position scoring his 21st goal at Zorrilla to win LaLiga. They were the only four players who exceeded 20 goals. And in this start of the competition, Benzema doubled Alavés to open LaLiga, Suárez made his debut against Villarreal in his first start of the course and Gerard Moreno has not yet scored. Ángel Correa leads the scorers table with three goals in three games (tied with Vinicius and Lamela), a double in Balaídos and the winning goal against Elche. And if no scorer shoots the figures, Griezmann already knows what it is like to exceed twenty goals in the League during two seasons with Atlético.
Fighting for the Pichichi is something that very few athletes have achieved. In addition to Forlán and Vieri, only Manolo (27 goals in the 1991-92 season), Baltazar (35 at 88-89), Hugo Sanchez (19 at 84-85), Save yourself (17 at 70-71), Gárate and Luis Aragonés (16 at 69-70), Save yourself again (14 at 68-69), Lewis (18 at 65-66) and Pruden (33 in 40-41) have been able to obtain the award. And since that 1970-71 season, in which Gárate was the top scorer and Rodri was the goalkeeper with the least goals scored as a rojiblanco, no club has shared Pichichi and Zamora in the same championship. New challenges for the great athletic forward, who wants to lead the club to be able to fight again for the individual distinction of top scorer.