Atletico Madrid will travel to Barcelona on Sunday to face the Catalan side at Montjuic, and there is a particularly tasty renunion on the cards. Joao Felix, on loan from Atletico Madrid, will face off against his old teammates in a crucial clash for the La Liga title race, and his former colleagues have been clear as to why he could not make things click at the Metropolitano.
The last line of defence against Felix will be Jan Oblak, who did not believe that their knowledge of each other will not make much difference, as he told Marca.
“He knows me and I know him, he knows the team perfectly. Joao is a high-quality player who can do wonderful things that are completely unexpected. I think every game is a completely different story and it doesn’t matter if we know each other perfectly or not.”
On Thursday evening, Antoine Griezmann, who struggled at Barcelona but has redeemed himself in impressive fashion over the past 18 monhts, declared that he was not consistent enough.
If the public doubted Griezmann at all, Oblak also put his inability to succeed under Diego Simeone down to Felix’s lack of consistency.
“I’m sure that (the minutes Felix is getting) are extremely important, not only for Joao but also for any player. But you have to prove it on the pitch and during training that you deserve to be in the lineup. You have to give your best so that the coach can trust you, and this doesn’t just apply to Joao.”
Prior to Felix’s loan move to Chelsea last season, much of the narrative surrounding Felix’s time at Atletico Madrid was that Simeone was to blame for not being able to get the best out of the Portuguese. Yet that narrative has shifted somewhat over the past 12 months, after a disappointing spell in London. At Barcelona, Felix still has to prove Atletico wrong, given he has just four goals in his opening 16 games, although that does not reflect his creative impact, and the face he has three assists. Nevertheless, it has been an up and down opening to the season for Felix.
