Be yourself, everybody else is already taken. It was time for Atlético Madrid to get back to being Atlético Madrid and for the rest of us to accept them as they are, Diego Simeone said. Not just as they are, in fact, but as they have always been: there is but one true path, their path, and they will walk it. A Saturday afternoon in early November at the club’s Cerro del Espino training ground in Majadahonda, the day before the visit of Sporting Gijón, and the coach was using the pre-match press conference to hand out a history lesson and deliver a statement of intent and identity. “This is Atlético,” he declared.

Atlético had gone six weeks without a defeat but the week before they had drawn 1-1 with Deportivo de La Coruña at Riazor and it was just four days since it finished 0-0 at Astana in the Champions League, where they didn’t so much play poorly as not play at all, and the criticism was unusually fierce. So Simeone went on the counterattack. It is the Atlético way, after all.

“I invite those who still don’t know what Atlético Madrid is to look again at work, pressure, playing on the counterattack, being defensively strong. Those who want to change that are going against what Atlético have always been,” he claimed. “There are lots of ways of playing well: some choose to have a lot of the ball, others choose to play well on the counter. Historically, this is what Atlético is. Don’t confuse the fans. This is Atlético. This: effort, contagiousness, counterattacks, competitiveness. That’s the way success has always come and we’ll continue that way, no matter what they say.”

Atlético’s historic identity is not quite so clear cut, of course: there is not a single style running through their entire existence. And besides, it wasn’t only “them” saying it. Atlético spent €126m in the summer and although sales totalled €120.5m, meaning the net spend was just €5.5m, the expectation was that they would look a little different this season.

The focus had been strengthening the attack and increasing the creativity, even if Mario Mandzukic had gone and the departure of Arda Turan hurt. Ángel Correa was healthy after an operation on his heart, able to (re)start a year later, while Fernando Torres had a full pre-season with them. Koke was expected to move into the middle, making that hard centre a creative one too. Óliver Torres had returned from loan at Porto, where Jackson Martínez, who cost €36.75m, had scored 67 league goals over the last three seasons. Luciano Vietto had joined from Villarreal for €20m. And Yannick Carrasco had arrived from Monaco, for €15m.

This might be the strongest squad they have ever had and many thought that while there would not be a revolution, there would be an evolution. When Simeone accused the media of demanding that Atlético were more attacking, that they were suggesting that the club (and, worse still, the fans) break with their own history and identity, he overlooked the fact that he had said so too. His discourse had been different … until that November day. Speed would remain central but he had talked about shifting to a 4-3-3, switching between that and a 4-4-2, about playing higher and seeking more possession, greater creativity. One player admits that before the derby against Real Madrid, he had surprised them by talking about possession, and playing it out from the back.

Atlético could have won the derby of course: overrun in the first half, they made it 1-1 in the second and, but for a superb late save from Keylor Navas, it would have finished 2-1. They beat Sevilla 3-0 at the Sánchez Pizjuán, where both Barcelona and Madrid would lose. And the 2-1 victory over Valencia makes it sound much closer than it really was. But it still wasn’t quite the way they had envisaged it.



It was early still, but the evolution remained incomplete and not entirely convincing, while some of what they had done well before was seemingly lost or at least lost sight of: they were unusually open, less adept at denying opponents space or time. Koke hadn’t found his form. And there was a sense that they were not quite sure what to do with their attacking players, how best to accommodate them, and a sense too that those attacking players were not sure either. Even now, 14 games into the league season, Martínez has only two goals, the same number as Carrasco and Fernando Torres, one more than Correa and Vietto.

When Simeone spoke up in November, it was in defence of his team going back to what they know, the recovery and defence of an identity. It is not quite so clear cut as it can appear: Atlético have played 4-3-3 rather than (or as well as) 4-4-2 – this weekend was the first league game they have played without the injured Tiago, so it is early to judge how they will manage that – and they have pressured higher than in their league title-winning season, forcing teams back and, in some games, making significant amounts of chances. But something did shift, in attitude and priorities.

Simeone placed the change in the Real Sociedad game, in week eight, but it was not really apparent to everyone else until later. For some, it has not been apparent until now. The pace and intensity increased, the role of the forwards has been as much to defend as to attack and they are competing like Atlético do, just as Simeone demands. “We have had talented players but we have always followed the way this club has played historically. Talent and temperament go together. Players play with effort, work, a sense of belonging, faithful to an idea. Diego Ribas had talent and he adapted,” Simeone said. “Arda, Villa, Adrián …”

“It is so hard to create chances against them,” admitted the Granada defender Jean-Sylvan Babín this weekend. “They kill you on the counter,” David Lombán added. “They’re a big team that runs like a small one,” the Eibar manager José Luis Mendilíbar admiringly said. Recently Simeone called Atlético an “uncomfortable team.” One opposition coach put it more bluntly: “horrible,” he called them.

That’s the way they like it; the way Simeone wants opponents to feel. That personality that he declared inalterable, a non-negotiable historic identity that had seemingly been altered, however momentarily, has been re-asserted – in part perhaps just by the performance level of familiar faces, from Godín to Gabi, Griezmann to Tiago, naturally tilting the balance back to the way they were. Eight players arrived and eight players departed in the summer, but the most significant thing that happened may just be that, when it came to Godín and Griezmann, nothing happened. Both had offers; both stayed. This weekend, both scored.

“That is why we made an effort with Godín,” Simeone said on Saturday night. “His work and the way that he approaches the game mentally put him in a very special place. That’s why we insisted that the club make an effort to keep him.” He didn’t just mean the goal and he didn’t just mean this Saturday. He meant the spirit, the identity, the Atlético that hadn’t been talked about – just as, bafflingly, Godín doesn’t get talked about, still less mentioned when the awards come round – but that is there now, and deserves to be taken seriously, that’s doing it their way.

The day after Simeone handed out a history lesson, Atlético beat Sporting 1-0. The following week they beat Betis 1-0 and the week after that they beat Espanyol 1-0. This weekend they beat Granada 2-0. “Just like old times,” ran one headline. Griezmann got the second and it was a wonderful goal, a superb dummy, perfect pass and thumping finish. Godín got the first and it was the way it used to be: corner, header, goal.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Antoine Griezmann after his goal. Photograph: Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images

This was the first time they had got a header from a corner this season, another sign that maybe that Atlético is back, a moment that could be seen as symbolic somehow. When Atlético won the Copa del Rey in 2013, it was a Miranda header; when they won the league a year later, it was a Godín header. When they were 30 seconds from winning the European Cup, it was another Godín header that put them there.

On Monday morning, they were back to the scene of their 2014 heartache. Atlético flew to Lisbon to face Benfica and they will stay in the same hotel that they stayed in before the 2014 Champions League final. Normally, when they lose an away game they change hotels, but not this time. Their surroundings may remind them of the night that it went so horribly wrong, but that serves as motivation; besides, it is also a reminder of the season when things went so right, arguably the most meritorious league title success there has ever been in Spain. Unrepeatable. Or is it? Something silently stirring now. “This Atlético want the league,” ran one headline in AS. “We’re ambitious but I can’t say where we’ll end up … our aim is to win every game and the first of those is the next one,” Godín said.

Partido a partido, game by game, is the cliché that Simeone turned into a philosophy. Saturday’s 2-0 win at Granada was Simeone’s 150th game in charge; he has won 94 of them, making for a better percentage than any coach in the club’s history. It was also their 12th consecutive game without defeat and a fourth clean sheet in a row, their ninth this season. No one in Europe has a better defensive record. Not Bayern, PSG, Inter or Manchester United. Real Madrid conceded more in their last two games before this weekend than Atlético have all season. Espanyol conceded as many in a solitary match.

And so it goes: game by game, almost unnoticed, Atlético Madrid have found themselves and climbed to second place, ahead of Real Madrid and, after Barcelona’s 1-1 draw at Mestalla on Saturday night, just two points from the top. “There is no better way of looking to the future than living the present,” Simeone said.

Talking points

Valencia’s Santi Mina snatches 1-1 draw with Barcelona in front of Gary Neville Read more

• On Thursday evening Gary Neville had stood on the pitch at Mestalla gazing up at the main stand. “Which one’s Peter’s?” he asked. “That one there,” he was told, a finger pointing up at the owner’s private box high up. On Saturday night, that’s where he sat, a packet of Starburst in front of him, to watch his new team – who didn’t officially become his new team until the following morning when he took training for the first time at Paterna – got a 1-1 draw with Barcelona, thanks to Santi Mina’s late equaliser, beautifully made by Paco Alcácer after Luis Suárez had given Barcelona the lead. If Neville learned nothing else – and with a dozen players missing, he may not have learned a huge amount – he discovered that when Mestalla is good it is very, very good.



• “They’re just happy to have me around”. Lucas Pérez can say that again. And while he was talking about his friends and family, what with him being back home after spending three seasons in Ukraine, he could just as well have been talking about all of them. A local boy, Deportivo fan, scorer of that vital and brilliant goal at the Camp Nou on the final day of last season, and absolutely outstanding so far this season, racking up goals at a rate not seen there since Walter Pandiani, and thoroughly likable every time he talks, he could hardly be more of a hero. He got another goal, his 10th of the season, as Deportivo drew 1-1 with Sevilla. A Champions League place is still just three points away.

• First there was there clásico, then there was the Cádiz cock up – another Cup thrown away, as the cover of El Periódico neatly put it – so it was inevitable that Madrid’s next home game would be seen as a bit of plebiscite. There were some whistles and boos too, but there were also four quick goals, with Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo all scoring in the same match for the first time since the spring.

Results: Madrid 4-1 Getafe, Granada 0-2 Atlético, Valencia 1-1 Barcelona, Deportivo 1-1 Sevilla, Betis 1-1 Celta, Real Sociedad 2-1 Eibar, Villarreal 2-1 Rayo, Sporting 2-1 Las Palmas. Monday night: Espanyol-Levante.

La Liga table