The ‘hero of Anfield’Has broken with everything. He is no longer just the player who scored two goals at Liverpool, but it has been revealed as an essential piece of the league champion with 12 goals and 11 assists, playing in all lines except the goal. Can't understand this
Atlético de Madrid
champion without the blast of Marcos Llorente.
Midfield player, inside right, midfielder, right winger, forward and even right back. In November, the Spanish coach, Luis Enrique MartinezHe wondered, half jokingly half seriously, where would the footballer he had just called up for the first time play. “I will have to ask him where he is most comfortable,” he said.
The definition was given hours later by the rojiblanco coach Diego Pablo
Simeone. “He is an all-field player, he can play anywhere in the middle of the field, because he has something fundamental that is vertigo, speed, goal, break, work,” the Argentine listed.
Deserves the credit Simeone because he discovered in a footballer that everyone, including himself, considered a positional midfield, a mine of possibilities. “I saw that he scored goals, goals, goals … And a boy who scored goals had to be taken advantage of, because the goal is very important in football,” he said last season.
In this, that use of the physical and football conditions of the Madrid has surpassed another level. And that did not start out being indisputable despite his grand finale last season: of the first four days, he came off the bench in three. It quickly became irreplaceable and has never failed. Among all the competitions, only three games have been lost: one of League for accumulation of warnings, and two without being summoned in the Cup.
The win at Cadiz in the Metropolitan Wanda (4-0) in which Simeone He experimented for the first time with the three center-backs and the lanes, he found Llorente's place: inside on the right, ahead of the pivot, with freedom to break into space, work in the middle and offensive association with the Englishman Kieran
Trippier. In that scheme, the rojiblanco '14' has looked the most.
He has not always been able to play like this. The sanction of the English Federationsa to Trippier for breaking the betting regulations and the constant injuries of the Croatian Sime
Vrsaljko forced to convert him into a lateral or lane, a position that took advantage of his work capacity but took him away from the area, with which the Athletic lost a key weapon. Even so, it has earned him to be international with the Spanish team.
SUÁREZ-LLORENTE, 49% OF THE CHAMPION'S GOALS
Such has been the evolution of the former midfielder that it has ended up being part of a duo as unsuspected as it is essential for the champion's attack: Marcos Llorente-Luis Suarez. Between the two they have signed 33 goals, 21 from the Uruguayan and 12 from Madrid, 49.2 percent of the champion's goals (67).
Goals that have been worth points: 46 of the 86 obtained by the champion have been due to the action of one, the other, or both, either by goals or by assists. Essential footballers for him Athletic, which in several cases have combined well together: four of the Madrid's 11 assists have been for the Uruguayan, who has corresponded with two goal passes.
“On a personal level, it is my best year as a footballer. I don't have to say so. I have never enjoyed such continuity as here and, when a player enjoys that continuity, it is at the end when they see the player that he is. I'm showing what I have inside and I still have a lot to show, “he said. Llorente in December after winning the Real
Society, with some of his and another of Beautiful mario (0-2).
Certainly, the Madrilenian does not need to insist, because not only his numbers, but his game, reflect an authentic explosion of qualities, such as a tremendous ability to break defenses with the uncheck into free space without falling into the offside, a infinite faith in his possibilities that has allowed him to steal balls that have generated goals, and a generous and constant dedication. The ‘todocampista’ Llorente he is already rojiblanco champion. Now look at the Eurocup 2020 with the Spanish team.