Luis Suárez recovers the figure of the '9' scorer at Atlético

EI Atlético has been sustained traditionally in the goals from their battering rams to compete for titles. From the Doublet achieved with Penev in the lead, the club's scorers multiplied year after year despite the fact that the team's course was not always good (Vieri, Hasselbaink with 24 goals in the league despite relegation, Diego Alonso, Salva, Fernando Torres, Forlán, Agüero, Falcao…) until winning the League again with a titan up. It was Diego Costa, who scored 27 goals in the competition (36 adding the rest and led a team for history).

But, since the departure of the Spanish-Brazilian in the summer of 2014, the position was not reciprocated. In the next six seasons, no center forward reached 15 league goals, Griezmann (22, 22, 16, 19 and 15 goals) being the only one to do so in his five seasons as rojiblanco despite always playing behind a reference. Mandzukic (12 in the League and the only one to reach 20 among all the competitions in this period), Torres (11), Gameiro (12 and 7) and Morata (6 and 12), each season's top scorers in the spot, couldn't get the least bit close to the numbers of their predecessors. Others like Jackson Martínez, Vietto or Costa on their return they did not approach. Something that can solve the arrival of Luis Suárez, a footballer who in his last eight seasons he has always exceeded 20 goals in all competitions and that in Barcelona he never fell below 15 goals in the league (last season there were 16 but he missed 10 games due to injury).

Despite the fact that the Blaugrana club decided to dispense with his services, at 33 he is still a goal scoring machine even without being in his best physical condition. Suárez has begun his stage at Atlético achieving five goals in his first six league appearances (one every 75 minutes). Despite the fact that he has not managed to make his debut in the Champions League in the three games he has played, with Uruguay he has added four more goals, all from penalties, in three games (one every 62.5 minutes), which places him as the top scorer in the South American tournament.

On your start, Suárez explained in his interview with AS that “are numbers that help the team to have the possibility of being at the top, with the illusion of wanting to reach the final goal, which is to achieve important things. If it is with goals, they are welcome, because the forward lives with that, but I don't set it as a goal. I set my target from help the team, be it with goals, assists or when it goes through negative streaks, which the forwards pass, but we hope that this year is not the case “.

Good of the team's options this season will depend on his aim, where Cholo has shaped the style to favor the game of his new great '9'. “The characteristics of the footballers always mark the path to look for and the coaches seek to empower the team. I think that all this is generated from the presence of Suárez. There is a need to supply it, with Costa and Morata there were other characteristics to the space and with long land. We were looking for other situations. Luis needs more people close to him, to live where it hurts and the team works in search of the most complicated path, which is the goal. “A team more focused on attack that knows that it has a top scorer who is going to solve the ballot .

The solution to the curse of penalties

Luis Suárez once again demonstrated with Uruguay how reliable he is from the penalty spot. Has got four so many in that luck with his selection (to Chile, two to Ecuador and Colombia), in which it is one of the great evils of Atlético. Suárez was not on the field in any of the three penalties taken by Atlético this season, where two of them did not end in goals. Saúl missed against Granada on matchday one and João Félix hit the post at El Sadar on his second attempt after converting the first. Last season, Atlético had five different pitchers without finding their specialist, something they have finally achieved with the arrival of Luis Suárez.