No nine, look dark

The machine that is working so well in the League got stuck in the Champions League where it was neither expected nor due. Atlético dominated, created chances, bombed Lokomotiv (20 shots in total)… but they didn't score. In the Metropolitan there was the feeling that the team missed a center forward, to Suárez, to Costa or, better yet, first to one and then to the other, as was the plan at the beginning of the season. Simeone has run out of both ends and that upsets the plans and, at the same time, optimism. And what lies ahead will demand an outstanding version of Atleti.

In the first 12 minutes, the team already had generated five shots and four other occasions who wandered around the area. Llorente entered from the right and their low passes did not find anyone to push them, the same happened to belt in another action from the left … A match start where more was played in the Guilherme area than in the Atleti field and that it would have given to sentence with some aim, but that it did not serve more than to get a scant point.

Having Luis Suárez in the field would have helped, although that would not have ensured victory. But beyond the shot and the goal, there are situations in which it is very good to have a classic nine. For example, to accompany João Félix. The Portuguese performs better with a teammate who frees him from certain tasks, who fixes him to the centrals, who gives him back walls, who makes him uncheck … In the last two games his partner in attack has been Correa, whose profile is more similar to João himself than the other battering rams.

With 0-0, Simeone decided to put Camello in the 80th minute. The canterano played his first minutes of the season and advanced to Saponjic, which warmed up in the Metropolitan band. The coach still does not give opportunities and it seems difficult that he can have them even without the first two forwards. In practice, Atleti will be without a center forward right now.

A tight and tough schedule

The setback against Lokomotiv serves as I warn Cholo and his troop. In the next 16 days, Atlético will play against Valencia, Bayern, Valladolid, Salzburg and Real Madrid. Costa will not be in any of those games and Suárez, who first has to overcome the coronavirus, will not return in his best form. The João, Correa, Carrasco and Llorente (plus the contribution of Lemar and Vitolo) they will have to take responsibility for the absent nines, even though they all perform better from the second row.

“We cannot stop at what we do not have, if not to enhance what we have”, Simeone reflects, who rightly warned that against Osasuna, without battering rams, Atleti scored three goals. That the 0-0 with Lokomotiv is an accident and not the symptom of something worrisome will be able to correct it as a team in the next exams …