Why exactly is it so different? That is the puzzle that through a series of questions, queries and suggestive hypotheses that Football España and a selection of media are trying to get to the bottom of. The variation of questions, the continued line of the interrogation, tells you that nobody has quite got a satisfactory response, or at least not one that provides a strong narrative. Try as we might, nobody could coax Rodrigo de Paul into revealing the secret – what exactly has turned Atletico Madrid into the best team in La Liga?
The numbers are so dramatic, that it feels as if the changes should have a conscious and poignant plot twist. Before the World Cup, Atletico Madrid were a despairing football team, only good enough for the Europa League in Spain, and not good enough for any sort of football if pitted against what was a theoretically simple group in Europe. Both of the teams that qualified, Porto and Club Brugge, were out in the next round. Domestically, they sat 13 points off leaders Barcelona; they were also just 13 points away from Cadiz in 19th place. Averaging 1.71 points per game, there was no confidence, questions over the system and less faith in the direction of the team.
As they take to the field at Camp Nou, they will still be 13 points off Barcelona, but just two away from Real Madrid. They have been the best side in 2023, with an identical record to Barcelona and a remarkable nine-point swing over their crosstown rivals. On average, they now take 2.4 points each match, and are on a remarkable 13-game unbeaten run in La Liga, 10 of which were wins too.
The biggest event between those two runs was the World Cup itself. “Hello, how are you,” grins de Paul in consciously accented English, winner of that tournament, as he bounces into his chair.
“Football is a lot to do with mentality, when things are going well, when there is a good dynamic,” shrugs de Paul.
“There are lots of teams that after having the World Cup, they were exhausted physically and mentally. After the World Cup it has fallen for us that we have found a good dynamic and put together a run of victories, but there is no secret,” he protests. “The dynamics and the mentality are very important, and we’re in a good dynamic.”
Three of the Atletico ranks were champions with Argentina, Griezmann re-positioned himself amongst the world’s best on the biggest stage – maybe there’s a degree of affirmation that’s been earned through their international exploits?
“Winning a World Cup, there aren’t many things that compare to it, and that feeling you have. But we train for many years to become professional footballers and we are used to competing. Every day when I wake up, I get to do what I want, and that is compete.”
“What motivates us is competition, and what motivates me is competing, and it’s what has me at the level I’m at.”
Mentality is of course a vital factor for any side, but the message doesn’t appear to have changed radically either, at least from the outside. Perhaps the changes that can’t be seen are more significant than they appear. Griezmann of course can now play 90 minutes rather than 30, the team can now prepare matches for three to four days rather than one to two. Mario Hermoso, nearing exile before December, has walked straight in to replace their best defender Reinildo Mandava, and added an extra avenue of progression with the ball. Nahuel Molina looks sharper and more comfortable.
“We are growing and we want to continue improving, I see the team after the World Cup, I repeat it and repeat it again, that something has improved and you can feel that improvement. Those who want to understand it, understand it,” claimed Diego Simeone mysteriously.
Of course the biggest change, or perhaps the most tempting, is the absence of Joao Felix. The moody but mercurial talent, unable to click with the molten disciplinarian, prevented everyone from rowing in the same direction, instead causing Atleti to veer off course. Or so it went.
Yet Felix wasn’t actually playing much. The Chelsea loanee started just two league games between September and his departure. Captain Koke has admitted that perhaps the media attention Felix attracted was not beneficial, but de Paul has dismissed the idea that he was ruining the atmosphere in the past, and in the present he says Felix will be “super-welcome” if he returns next season. It is giving Felix an awful lot of credit if his absence is responsible for such a shift.
The truth is that the media have been desperately searching for a larger philosophical or tactical development for some time. Stefan Savic echoed de Paul and Simeone several weeks ago when he was posed the same question.
“We are very good after the World Cup, the team changed, the mentality, the intensity. Now we are the Atletico that everyone knows. We are in a good moment,” assures Stefan Savic.
“We have to go back two years,” Simeone perhaps lets us behind the curtain a little. “The team that is playing is the team that won LaLiga, almost all of them are playing now, with Rodrigo, Nahuel, with Griezmann. We have changed little, we have had more continuity regarding injuries, that hurt us a lot.”
“The team again has that block of the championship year. Reinildo was injured, he returned to have continuity with [Jose Maria] Gimenez and Savic, Mario has had an enormous regularity to his work. The team is playing well, and when the team plays well and is committed, you see good things.”
That title-winning season is approaching an entire two seasons in the distance of time, but there is little doubt that that was the last time Atletico Madrid resembled the unit they want to.
Savic and Gimenez had admittedly become an infrequent partnership over those two years, but Hermoso was present and purposely discarded. De Paul calls Griezmann the ‘commander’ of the attack, and increasingly he has a similar prominence to an NFL quarterback in the Atleti offence. Yet he was there too last season. Conveniently ommitted from most narratives is that Felix was also there in the title charge. Searching for that magic catalyst, recruitment is a factor but maybe not the differential one.
The reality is that when play resumed in December, Simeone himself was being signalled as corroded element in this Atleti side, with talk of Cholo-out groups forming in the dressing room.
“Never did we doubt that Cholo is Atletico Madrid and this is his home,” says with less of his playful air than usual.
“It’s perhaps part of the game of journalism casting doubt on things,” de Paul makes eye contact, “but here we never doubted that style of play and we knew that he would finish the season, and he will finish next season.”
Despite best efforts, it appears there is no potion has been brewed, nor has there been a Eureka moment, interpreted so often as proof of genius.
Patently there are a number of causes and nuances that have contributed to this upturn. Some carrying considerable weight, as if Griezmann needed pink hair to stand out, others less obvious, Molina has simply had more time to adapt to the team. Just as there were a multitude of issues in those first fourteen games.
A change in mentality and a variety of seemingly smaller factors do not add up to such a different football team in our minds, but maybe it’s a reminder that the margins in football are slimmer than we imagine.
One thing that is perhaps notable, coherent with de Paul’s last words, is that element of doubt. If Diego Simeone was failing to get the best out of his squad, and was being tactically left behind, is he getting the credit for this turnaround now, on a run of form that threatens to take Los Colchoneros above their Madrid neighbours, and above season expectations?
And perhaps the poignancy that we’ve been searching for is within de Paul’s own words too – never doubt Cholo.
Watch Atletico de Madrid take on FC Barcelona on Sunday April 23, on Viaplay 1. Coverage begins from 3PM.
