Is this Simeone's best version of Atletico Madrid?
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The Athletic FC Podcast Network. On Sunday, Atletico Madrid made it 11 wins on the bounce. Alexander Serlot, part of the near 200 million euro investment, got the job done against Getafe. Having drawn level at the top of La Liga, next up they head to tabletop as Barcelona. So can Diego Simeone's new look at Atleti sustain their challenge?

In for this one. In Madrid, we have our La Liga correspondent, Dermot Corrigan, as well as Colin Miller. Dermot, let's talk about Sunday's win over Getafe. 11 wins in a row for Atletico Madrid. But also, I mean, the stats are insane. 31 goals scored, 7 goals conceded, 6 clean sheets.

Is this a new rejuvenated Atletico Madrid under the old dog Simeone? Yeah, there's a lot of momentum building around Atletico at the minute. They're very happy with themselves. They keep winning games. They're playing three competitions, Copa del Rey, Champions League and La Liga. And there's been a lot of

come from behind wins in those games as well. There's a lot of late substitutes coming on doing something special which has built a lot of momentum for them. They haven't played the most difficult opponents in that run. A lot of the games in the league have been against teams in the bottom half. They won at PSG which was big in the Champions League but now they've got a huge game at Barcelona at the weekend. A chance to show at Atletico there's always maybe some doubters especially at Real Madrid and at Barcelona that are they really up to it? Are they really going to challenge us this season? And Saturday is when we should find that out. Yeah, big one Colin against

Barcelona, joint top, but only behind Barca on goal difference. And they do have a game in hand on Hansi Flick's side as well, actually. And that's all despite what some might class as a less than convincing start to the season. How have they managed to get this momentum going? And where was the turning point where this new look Atletico started to look relatively convincing? This is actually really interesting because it's

It's sort of early in the season, it's the end of October, Atletico Madrid lost 1-0 at Real Betis in the league, and that came a couple of days after a really disappointing Champions League home defeat against Lille, and there was a sort of sense that even at this early point in the season, their title challenge was over, not just because of their own form, because they were drawing a lot of games in the league, and they were 10 points behind Barcelona, but...

The fact that obviously Hansi Flick's side had looked unstoppable at that point in time. It looked like they were going to be setting 80, 90, even 100 points potentially in La Liga. And then you have Real Madrid as well. And we all know what they can do. But I think when you're talking about Atletico Madrid and what they can do in a season, a lot of it depends on what those two other clubs can achieve. So if the league...

points tally to win the league is upwards of 90 points you almost think well Atletico Madrid aren't going to get to those levels and that actually played out in the previous two seasons when they won the league as well whereby the other teams have to have off seasons and for a while it didn't look like that was going to happen in recent weeks of course Barcelona have

undergone a really really difficult run of results and Madrid have been dropping points too and that has coincided with this incredible run but whenever Atletico lost at Betis it was such a bad defeat they had none of what it was that makes Atletico Madrid at

Atletico Madrid. They didn't have that sort of collective identity. There was no aggression. There was no structure or team cohesion. They could have lost that by three or four goals and that probably would have been a fair reflection of the game. After that Betis game, as they always do every week, they have this sort of breakdown with their video team and they look at the game, they look at what's gone wrong. And that meeting the day after that game took one hour longer than usual.

And what has been reported essentially is that Simeone's sat down with the players and he's like, look, I'm going to point out everything that's gone wrong here. And if we don't fix all of these things, we are nothing. Not only are we not going to win anything, but we're not who we are. We're not the identity that we have had and we have built over all these years. And this has come off the back of a summer when they obviously invested a lot of money in the transfer market. There's been quite a bit of player turnover for Atletico Madrid standards. So there's quite high expectations. And

And this is almost a sort of cyclical annual thing for Atletico Madrid.

whereby they always look to be that little bit more expansive and more aggressive, more attacking, maybe take a few more risks than they traditionally do. And that happens every year. And they try that for a couple of months and then they're like, well, actually, it's actually much better for you to sort of revert back to type. And then all of a sudden they start getting results again. And that's kind of been this. So this season has almost been like a sort of an exacerbation of that particular point. But they've now seemed to have settled on a kind of 4-4-2 formation because they've had three at the back, five at the back.

They've got players like Javi Galan, Clement Lenglet are not playing regularly. Simeone's son, Giuliano, who we kind of thought was a bit more of an attacking player, sort of playing as a wide midfielder. Conor Gallagher is playing as a wide midfielder, although they're both kind of tucked in. And what that has done is that sort of brought back this identity back into the team. They're not playing with a lot more aggression. They're playing a lot more on the front foot. They're winning their tackles. They're winning the ball high up the pitch.

And that's creating a lot of chances for the sort of high turnover of goals they've had as well. So as things stand at the minute, they're in a really good place, albeit haven't had a relatively straightforward run of fixtures by the standards of the season. I'm just thinking about identity, Dermot.

And regardless of the style of football, one thing you can always say about a Simeone team is there's a fight, right? You talk about late goals. That is very Atleti. Let's keep going to the final whistle. But I wonder if a leopard's changed its spots. You know, I talked about the old dog at the top. Sorry about the animal analogies here. But like the real talk is, you know...

Are we seeing a different type of Simeone at the moment in terms of the style of play, Dermot? It's been a kind of a gradual thing with Simeone. As Colin said there, they often make an attempt to

to modernize the squad or to play better football or to move on from the old dog or the, as I'm getting on it, it's like the dance of war type of idea that you have from Simeone. Because when Simeone took over Atletico, they used to play in the Calderon, which was a crumbling concrete ball at the centre of Madrid city centre. It was an old club, a lot of, um,

The players were journeyman players who had arrived at Atletico. And Simeone galvanised them into this amazing team. Guys like Godin and Gabby, who got to two Champions League finals together.

And that's still kind of the idea or the essence of Atletico and of Simeone's reign. But it's, you know, it's a decade ago now. They've moved to a shiny new stadium across the city. It's much bigger. It's a much more modern experience. You go to Atletico games. The whole club has been modernized over the last decade. And Simeone's had to adapt to that reality as well. The type of player that the club have signed, the type of budget that they're,

operating in the objectives that the club have. They want to win trophies to be a top European super club. They're going to play in the Club World Cup next summer as well. They've qualified for that. And that happened again last summer when they brought in, spent 200 million on really high quality players like Julian Alvarez won the World Cup, won the Champions League at Man City. Conor Gallagher, Robin Lennarmont had just won the Euros with Spain. And they're trying to build a new...

It's kind of trying to keep the old identity of Atletico and Simeone and battling for everything and fighting for everything and also have new players who are world stars, who are technically great and have the lifestyles, maybe the egos that come with having the top stars and how you fit them into a Simeone dressing room. Last summer, they got rid of some of the players who

who it turned out just weren't going to be good fits with Simeone. Joe Felix is the most obvious of them. They tried everything to, the club hierarchy tried everything to try to get him to settle in. And it just didn't work with Simeone. Others like Morata, who, you know, scored goals for Atletico over the years, but was never an ideal fit with Simeone's style of play. And I was talking to somebody at the club just before the Sloven-Bratislava game at Atletico, a pretty senior figure at the club, who was saying that guys like

Alvarez and Gallagher and Lennar Mond as well. But they're more kind of Simeone type personalities as well. They're technically good players, especially Alvarez, but they're also, you know, fighters. You know, I've seen Alvarez play for Argentina in the World Cup and he's that kind of a battling type of a character as well as having the quality that he has. So if they can mix those two things, if they have the soul of Atletico, of Simeone, that kind of Augsburg idea, and then they have the technical quality that guys like Griezmann as well, then they should be winning trophies. They should be going for it.

All these victories have come, as Colin said, since that game against Betis when you didn't see that soul of a guy to go in the team. There wasn't that fight there and maybe there's a few home truths afterwards and a few players have faded off the scene. They're not in the starting lineup anymore. Others have come in like Juliano, who's technically Simeone's son. He's 21. He's not

seen as a future superstar. He was at Alaves on loan last season and he did well, but he wasn't a first choice for a team who were battling against relegation. But he has that inherited DNA that he's got from his dad and he's got from growing up around Atletico that he fights for everything, he battles for everything. And that's kind of contagious. Seen it in some games when the crowd even at the stadium because it's a different crowd as well. Well, it's a different crowd at the minute because some of the ultras who...

through Hubchick's set Thibaut Courtois and the derby back in September and out loud back into the stadium but there's also just a new kind of more commercial atmosphere but it has people like Juliano to get the fans going get his teammates going and it's working pretty well at the minute Next let's dig a little deeper into the summer spending with Atleti spending almost listen to this 200 million euros You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with Ayo Akamulere

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Atleti's summer investment was almost 200 million euros. I mean, players like Julian Alvarez. We've also got Colin Gallagher. We've got Robin Lee Nomad. We've got Alexander Serlott and more. I mean, this is quite impressive. But also, how important is it for all those signings to come together and work, considering we saw what happened with Joao Felix, for instance? Yeah, it was it.

It's a big gamble or a big step that the club decided to make last summer. They had the big event at the Metropolitano Stadium where Gallagher was greeted by these guys on Harley-Davidson's who came onto the pitch. Again, given that kind of idea, Atletico had never done something like that before, but it was an idea of we're coming to a big stage, we're looking for new fans, we're looking for a new kind of level of Atletico Madrid. And that is a risk, that is a gamble because if it doesn't work out, if Joe Felix didn't work out and it

Turned out to be a millstone around the club's financial millstone around the club's neck for three or four years where they couldn't go out and sign somebody to replace him until they got rid of him. And in the end, Chelsea came in and helped them out a little bit in the summer, the way the deal was done with Gallagher as well. But it adds to extra pressure for the people around the club, pressure on Simeone as well.

when the better results and when things weren't looking well for them started to be kind of rumors to start to come out about maybe, you know, even though he's under contract, maybe is he the right guy to bring Atletico into the next step? Maybe he's been there too long. All that kind of stuff comes up and especially in Spanish media where there's a lot of Real Madrid kind of leaning editorial lines and some journalists as well who may be Atletico fans,

of being Real Madrid fans. That came out and Atletico weren't very happy with that, but they've used it as well to galvanize themselves. Within Atletico, within the Real fan base, within the dressing room as well, I don't think they like to see themselves as kind of pampered superstars. They prefer to see themselves as

guys who were up against it, who were battling against the odds. And Alvarez fits with that. Gallagher as well, you know, he had a difficult time at Chelsea. You know, Chelsea pretty much wanted to get rid of him, were forcing him out of the club. He had to wait during the summer to arrive at Atletico to get for the finances to kind of click into place, which

which Joe Felix ended up sorting that for them. But they are guys with something to prove. Alvarez at Man City wasn't in the team every week as well, you know, under Guardiola. But he wanted to come to Atletico pretty sure as well. He had other options that maybe would have paid him more money. PSG were interested in him as well. But there's a fit with Simeone, both Argentines, with De Paul, who he knows as well from the national team, that feeling of Atletico that

of the top teams, maybe they're still the underdog, if you could put it that way. And in a three-way title race, which we have in La Liga now because Barcelona have hit a real bad run of form. Madrid have been struggling a little bit as well. And Atletico...

Some argue have the strongest squad in La Liga. Maybe Barcelona and Madrid still have more really high quality individuals, players, and Madrid added Mbappe in the summer. But Atletico have a stronger squad, which is shown by how many goals have been scored late in games and many goals have been scored by substitutes. And again, it's

It's building momentum. We still have to see what it's going to work out over the course of the season. But at the minute, people around Atletico are pretty happy with their situation. Yeah, Colin, I'm just looking at these signings, right? And a lot of money has been spent. But you look at Alvarez, you look at Gallagher, you look at even Surlott to a certain degree. And I wonder how important the timing of these signings are, because you're looking at players who are clearly brilliant players.

but at that point in their career where they're looking for a new challenge and that time I always find really interesting when players move to teams. Do you think that has contributed to Alvarez, for instance, of how well they've done at Atletico since they've come since over the summer? This is always a thing of Atletico and Dermot kind of referenced it there a little bit as well. Their image is pretty much the club, right? That's what Simeone is. That's what he's built this team on and this club on and

they self-style themselves as the underdog. Now, in a way, that's sort of ridiculous because when you look at the amount of money they've spent, it is just so much higher than pretty much every other team in that league, and many of whom just don't have any money to spend at all. And for somebody like Julien Averes, that was an extraordinarily high transfer fee for a player who has actually, when you look at what he's won, Premier League, Champions League, World Cup, everything else that he's done already in his relatively short career, it's extraordinary. But

his only real experience at Man City was as mainly as a substitute it's fair to say mainly as a bit of a foiled Erling Haaland or a lot of the other creative players at City have so for Atletico to bring him in for that amount of money it showed that he really had to fit that profile that Simeone was looking for and we talk about it with players like Lionel Land and Conor Gallagher and Conor Gallagher sort of being referred to in the Spanish press as like a it's like a

Pitbull type of player which I don't really which I actually think is a bit it's almost a bit unfair as to how good a player he actually is but that's sort of what Atletico Madrid want their players to be seen as right it's all about the perception and I think I'll spit this a little bit and I actually do agree with Dermot in the sense that

Do Atletico Madrid have the best squad in the league after the summer? I think there's a very strong argument that they do. Not in the sense that they've got the best players per se in terms of the overall squad, but when you look at that sort of 18 and 19-man matchday squad that they have, they can rotate and bring players in and out and not have, not just any drop-off, not any real drop-off in quality, but any real drop-off in how they play. Whereas I think when you look at Barcelona and Madrid, if you took somebody like

Laminia Mal or Pedri or even Robert Lewandowski out of that Barcelona team. It fundamentally changes the way they play. It's the same with Madrid and their attacking players. But when you look at Atletico, they can sort of chop and change and it doesn't make too much of a difference. Now Alvarez himself, as we said about the money they spent on him, but this is somebody who brings a lot of energy to the attack. He also chips in with quite a few goals, but he also brings quite a lot of assists. This isn't a selfish player. This is a guy who, as we just said, was kind of like a little bit of a foil for City, certainly in Argentina as well for Lionel Messi.

And you look at Antoine Griezmann, who is the star of Atletico Madrid's team, there's no doubt about it. He's actually been the best player in La Liga, I think, for the last four or five years consistently. He's been absolutely brilliant. And I think everyone realises that he's a very good player, but I don't think anybody realises just how good he is.

He is absolutely brilliant. What he adds to that team is immense. But because he plays for Atletico Madrid and because he does it in a way that doesn't necessarily make him that superstar, we kind of underappreciate him. And I sort of think, is that what we think of all the other players at Atletico as well? Even somebody like Robin de Normand, who suffered a terrible head injury in that Madrid derby against Real Madrid. He's only just come back, thankfully. He seems to have recovered his health, but

somebody like him who was so influential for Spain at the Euros but a kind of player who you don't really necessarily equate with the success in itself and you don't necessarily think he's somebody that's going to really elevate a team to winning that league but he does help because he's

got that little bit of an edge about him but he just fades into the background it's like the every player that they identify is to fit into the simi only model that is absolutely crucial and as dermot said earlier as well this is a club who've gone completely changed off the field they're not an underdog anymore they make a lot of money they have a lot of money pumped into them they've moved across the city everything about them materialistically has changed in the past decade apart from that playing style and how do you evolve that while still being successful and that

is what we have to always go back to with Atletico because how do they bring those players in without losing what Simeone wants? And one thing about Alvarez is that there were question marks because when you look at the players that Atletico Madrid have signed, attacking players that they've signed, so many of them haven't worked out. Now, Joao Felix is the big one. Even if you look at Alvaro Morata who left this summer and Morata actually had quite a good career at Atletico, but I don't think he particularly enjoyed playing in that system. The demand that that places on attackers is immense.

in the past 10 years, the outlay in transfer fees, wages, agents fees on players like Jackson Martinez, Matthias Kvinjou, Memphis Depay, Thomas Lemar, Luciano Vietto, Kevin Gamero, and that's going back quite a few years. But those are all players who came in for quite a big fee, quite a lot of expectations, who maybe just didn't quite fit Atletico's natural style of play, especially the Joel Felix transfer with how high it was, the expectations around him as the sort of next superstar. And it's like, actually, well, maybe that type of player just

doesn't fit Atletico at all whereas a player like Alvarez does and we talk about the late goals the number of goals from substitutions whether or not it probably isn't sustainable at that level over the course of a season

What it does show is that we look at Bayer Leverkusen last season, for instance, in Germany. We all said that, but actually there was something about that style of play that also almost made it like self-perpetuating, didn't it? Because teams know that that's coming. Teams know that they're going to drop off a little bit. They're going to get a bit nervy. Athletic and we're like, well, we've done this so many times before. Let's just keep doing it. Right. And it's a very simple way of sort of analysing football. But I think it's true in instances like this.

And Atletico Madrid have that mentality and that's all down to the players that are signed, that have come from the coaching and what is drilled into them. But it is a tough job, but I think Alvarez has certainly so far, he's risen to the challenge, as have the other summer signings, by the way. Yeah, very quickly, Dem, I'm going to come to you in a second about how they've afforded this, but Colin, you know, I look at the old dog still left in that team, Correa, Jimenez. How important is it when you are...

adopting this new squad although you know as we pointed out a lot of these players are more suited to Simeone and maybe the athletic style how important is it that those old dogs are still there to carry the torch for Simeone to you know to basically implement those ideologies and that style into this team so it

it operates to the optimum in Simeone's mind. I think that's absolutely crucial and that's the case with any team, right? You need that continuity, you need those players who sort of set standards and train in and who, because that's what it is, it is standards and it's what you do off the ball, how you go about yourself as a footballer,

bowler all these things matter and it is different at Atletico Madrid than it is at Barcelona and Real Madrid that is a fact that you can't you cannot really act the same way on or off the pitch you have to conduct yourself in a certain way because this is a club who as we keep talking about identity and everything else that goes with it

That is all part of it. And what Simeone does is he has tried to foster that. He is the star, if that kind of makes sense. He's the guy that has, he has a big wage as well, but he's the guy who makes sure the cameras are on him and the touchline. He doesn't mind that at all because it takes the attention and the spotlight away from the players. He's like, right, I'm going to do that. Now you do your job. And a lot of the players, like Angel Correa is probably the best example of this, a player who was signed last

pretty much I think it was 10 years ago now coming in from Argentina and has pretty much throughout his career been a substitute and he has been such a great impact sub and there's always been questions like well why doesn't he start more but when he does start he just doesn't have the same impact and that's almost one of the things it's just the sort of he kind of sums it up that sort of selflessness like well I'm prepared to sit on the bench for 70 minutes every week I don't mind that because I'm going to come on I'm going to do my job so it's up to you to do your job on the pitch

as well and I think that there's a lot of leaders in that dressing room and that embodies what semi-union wants

And that, again, we keep going back to recruitment, but that's exactly what they need to do. But you can't just have that massive haul of players to fight those guys there, making sure it all takes off together too. Yeah, nice one. Dermot, this is it. Big money spent. You talked about investment earlier, but how have they managed to afford it all? Because, you know, La Liga have also got their financial restrictions and how much you can spend. And you've also got UEFA overlooking a lot of this as well. Yeah.

Yeah, the La Liga salary cap always comes into it, especially when you're talking about Barcelona and the problems that they've had. Atletico have...

have run close to the limit at different times but they made a big effort last season to get rid of some of the players who were pushing them over the limit. João Felix, the huge investment that they made on him, they needed to get him off the wage bill. Morata as well, as Colin said, he had his ins and outs in the team. He scored some goals for them but they wanted to use the salary that they had for him in a different way so he ended up being allowed to leave for Milan for a

a knockdown transfer fee really for a guy who had just captained Spain to the European Championships. Salonigas, another guy who was on a big salary, you know, came onto the scene about 10 years ago, looked like he was going to be a brilliant midfielder for Atletico, but it just hasn't worked out for him. With Simeone, he was sent on loan to Sevilla and a couple of other players removed that as well. Meanwhile, Atletico have been growing their revenues. The move to the new stadium has pushed them into a different league

They're not up there with Barcelona and Madrid, but they've gone way ahead of Sevilla, Valencia, other clubs who used to be seen as their peers in La Liga. Atletico would have battled with Sevilla for a signing or with Valencia, whereas now Atletico are well out.

ahead of them. They've got a lot of investment off the pitch in recent seasons as well. Aris Fund Management, Big American, a venture capital fund, or a big shelter in Atletico. Eden Ofer, who, not a very well-known name, but one of the richest men in the world, a British-Israeli shipping magnate. He's a shareholder at Atletico as well. These guys are not involved in the day-to-day running of

of Atletico, it's still Miguel Angel Hill-Marin is the CEO. His dad used to be the president of the club, a colourful character, maybe a couple of decades ago, worked a whole podcast on himself, maybe one day, Jesus Hill. But the old guys are still in charge of the club with Enrique Cerezo as well, the club president, but they have this money coming in from elsewhere. And last summer, there was a share offering which raised almost 100 million euros, which

basically went into raising the salary limit at the club so that we'll be able to spend the money on these players. If you go to Atletico now around the stadium, there's a huge area that they're developing. They're building a new training ground beside

beside the stadium. They're also building, and I wasn't aware of it until I went just to have a look the other day, Europe's biggest urban surfing park is going to be beside the Metropolitano Stadium. So you'd be able to, you know, if anybody's coming over from the UK or from wherever, you can go to an Atletico game and then you can go surfing at this surf park.

A right beside it is the plan for the future. So there'll be a shopping center, hotels, leisure facilities, all that kind of stuff, which is, is kind of part of being a European super club these days, or, you know, Tottenham stadium. They've done the go-kart track, haven't they? Underneath the, yeah, it's good. I've been there. It's really good. It's really good.

So at any cost, that's what they want to be. That's the type of club that they want to be. You know, there's talk that the club eventually will be sold, that the Hill Marine and Sereso, who, you know, have been there for decades and decades, will eventually move on. And maybe, you know, maybe the American investors or somebody else will take over the club full time. That seems to be still, you know, a couple of years away, at least until they

They get the plans done around the training ground, around this commercial leisure centre that they're building beside the stadium. But that's, you know, that's where the money is coming from. It's not, you know, Atletico before used to always be scrimping and saving and trying to get players, you know, deals with agents and all the kind of Atletico transfers that we were used to maybe 10 years ago. But it's changed now. They're a different club. Yeah, fantastic. Well, next, we'll ask how sustainable Atleti's challenge could be this season.

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This is the Athletic FC podcast with Ayo Akamulere. Colin, I'm so interested in where they are in the league at the moment. You know, same points as Barcelona in top spot, but three goal difference, Atleti is second. I'm just wondering how much of an opportunity this season presents for Atleti to possibly win the title. Obviously, Barcelona under Hansi Flick for the first season. I've just heard that

I mean, Jamal's injured for a sustainable period of time. You know, Real Madrid still looking to find that balance with Mbappe up front. This could be an interesting one for Atleti. If they manage to use those subs right and they manage to just get it over the line each match, it doesn't have to be a pretty, just win those matches. That's all we need. Yeah, and that's obviously the formula they've been on for the past two months. It is a strange one, as we said earlier that

Atletico Madrid need Barcelona to be flawed and they need Real Madrid to be flawed as well. Now that is happening and I think that the points total this year won't be extraordinarily high. It'll probably be somewhere in the sort of low to mid 80s. Now that's something that probably suits Atletico Madrid as we said earlier that if it's going to go 90 points plus that might be just too much of an ask for them over the course of the season. But I think the way things are panning out they're certainly in the type of race because we've got a large enough sample size now to look at this and be like well

Barcelona had that flying start, right? And we kind of thought, are they just going to run away with the league? We were talking about Barcelona previously in the season when Hansi Flick comes in, really high line, incredible number of all sides going against the other teams. And it's sort of like nobody could crack the code. And whenever they got the first goal, they went on and scored four or five. And you sort of thought this is unbelievable the way they were doing it with their sort of academy graduates and everything else.

But as things always tend to happen, teams tend to work them out in terms of how then you combat that.

that style of play. That certainly happened over the past month for Barcelona. And Real Madrid are certainly trying to find their own way as well. So they both have these huge question marks, whereas Atletico Madrid have almost already answered the questions they've had from that earlier in the season when they weren't sure what formation to play. They weren't sure what combination of the new signings to play and how to play them and what way they should play. They seem to have already answered all those questions. So from that point of view, Atletico Madrid right now are the club who actually look the most stable in terms of what they want and what they're trying to do.

when you look at their number of late goals and 12 of them have gone in in the last minute already this season that's that must I haven't looked for that must be higher than any other team in Europe's top leagues and by quite a way 22 of their 47 goals have come in the last 15 minutes this is extraordinary it points to so many things I mean obviously it points to fitness it points to self-belief it points to points obviously as Dermot has said and has written about as well the substitutions and getting them right and having those players to come in and the fact that the squad's strong but

all that points to the fact that whilst you might not be able to do it in that quantity over the course of a season, this is a team who knows how to win matches. So whilst we might think they're going to need to continue improving, they are going to need to continue improving, you can't rely on eight goals every single week over the course of a season. However,

However, what that does show is that there's a lot of things going on that they're doing right at the minute. And I think they're right in this title race. And obviously they've got the Champions League as well. The last minute winner away to PSG when they were actually outplayed for most of that match. And the last minute winner against RB Leipzig. But now they're starting to beat teams who are maybe a level or two down, but they're not just beating them, but they're scoring four or five goals, six goals against them.

So that just shows that they've got a total belief in what they're trying to do at the minute, whereas their title rivals don't. So I think when you've got that in mind and you've got to this point in the season, they're in a really strong place. They're going to have setbacks and it's going to be how they react to it and how they respond to it. But I think Simeone has his team in place now, has his squad of players, has total buy-in, has total self-belief once again. And we know that when Simeone has those elements to his team, they're going to be very hard to stop in terms of the league title challenge.

Yeah, for sure, Dermot. You only have to look at what Leverkusen did last season for last-minute goals to see how that kind of galvanised them through the entire season to lift the first Bundesliga ever. But I just want to keep on this conversation around Atletico Madrid potentially winning La Liga this season. You know, it was twice seen Simeone pull off all but impossible in beating both Real Madrid and Barcelona to the La Liga title, potentially looking at a hat-trick of titles at this moment in time. But I'm also thinking about the word goalkeeper

calling you to stability Barcelona are going through some mad stuff still I mean Paul Belusas has dropped a story around Daliamo a player who they fought to get after the Euros not potentially being able to be registered

and potentially even leaving in January. I mean, you know, it could be a battle of the stable clubs to see who takes La Liga this season. It's always a drama around Barca, or it has been, especially in transfers in recent seasons. And this is, they're outdoing themselves even with this one. Last summer, Barca knew that they didn't have very much money to go and sign players, but they also knew they wanted to go and sign some of the Spain players who did so well in the Euros. So they,

had a look at Nico Williams for a while. That was impossible from a technical bow. And then they decided to go for Dani Almo for 60 million from Leipzig. He was available. He wanted to come back. He's from the area. Was at Barca La Masia as a kid before he went off to Croatia and then to Germany. It all made sense. But they didn't have the money

to be able to sign within the La Liga salary cap. They found a way around it when Christensen, the Danish defender, got injured. They were able to use one of La Liga's rules to use some of Christensen's salary to pay almost salary within the salary cap. But that was only up until the 31st of December. Christensen is now fit again. He's on his way back. But from La Liga's point of view anyway,

they need to sort out the almost situation before the 31st of December. They need to find more money from somewhere so they can raise their salary limit for the season so they can fit almost salary in there as well. They thought they might be able to do that with the new kit deal with Nike that they signed. They did sign a new kit deal with Nike, but

not enough new money came into that for this season to be able to pay almost salary. They've looked at other ways around it as well, including trying to do a very Laporta, another one of Laporta's levers, which would be to take some of the season ticket money from the future, maybe from the VIP areas within the new camp now when that opens up and

and try to lever that into this year's accounts. I'm not sure La Liga are going to let them away with that one. So they're stuck in a situation at the minute where they need to find some money. They have that Barca Studios lever that we've talked about before, that failed investment that they had in this new idea for a media arm of the club, which was supposed to be a money spinner for them. But the investors in that have just not come through. So maybe they could find new investors in that, which would again raise the salary limit.

but it's difficult to see how they will do it. You know, as Paul has reported this morning, if they can't find a way around it, then Olmo is potentially, you know, free to sign for a new club around Europe from January 1st, which would be pretty amazing. The feeling is that with Barca, that they always find some way of getting around it. Laporta is an expert at coming up with last minute solutions, which often kick the can down the road, you know, solves the problem in the short term, but causes an even bigger problem in the long term. Olmo himself,

Pretty sure once they say Barcelona, he was away for a long time. He came back, you know, just after six months to go somewhere else. Seems unlikely. But at some stage of feeling around Barcelona, they can't, you know, just keep kicking the can down the road all the time. That these short-term solutions that eventually a problem too big to solve, to improvise your way out of it is going to arrive. So, you know, 17th of December, as I was sitting here talking to you now, that gives them two weeks to come up with a plan. It's going to be an interesting Christmas again for Barcelona.

For Barcelona and for Alba and for Laporta and everybody around it. But it is, it's a good comparison maybe with Atletico, who were, Atletico used to be the team who were always finding solutions at the last minute, maybe doing deals which looked a bit unusual in order to sign players, calling in favours, all that kind of stuff was kind of what you associated with Atletico going back over the years.

you know, they're still the same guys in charge of the club. So it's not a complete change at Atletico. But now it's Barcelona who are the ones who are with that kind of drama or even kind of soap opera end of it that we're always wondering what they're going to do next in order to do something in the transfer window. Sets it up nicely for Saturday's game. Not sure, almost probably going to play in the game. Remember, it's kind of funny, about 12 months ago, Atletico went to Barcelona. They'd won eight of their last nine games in La Liga. They were ahead of Barcelona in the table at that stage.

Barca had Joao Felix on loan who they levered into the team the previous summer. From Atletico, he scored the winning goal in the game. It was Joao Felix's best moment for Barca, maybe the only big signature moment that he had in a season on loan. And it was almost a catalyst for Barca. Javi's Barca had the time to go on and win La Liga. Atletico faded away. Their title challenge, you know, was kind of ended in December last season. So, yeah,

it just sets up Saturday's game really, really well. And everybody's looking forward to it as, as the final Barca and Atletico game before the winter break. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, as fans, they always say, don't fall in love with a loan signing at Barca right now. Just don't fall in love with any signing. You never know if they're going to last the test of time, but you know, on that Colin, you know, um, this does set up, uh,

the game against Barca away for Atletico Madrid quite well before Christmas who's going to take that top spot really interesting and also the permutations no la milia mal Atleti must be sniffing an opportunity surely

Yeah, and I think Dermot sort of alluded to it there, but this is the fixture that has always tripped up Atletico Madrid and sort of seasons gone by, even when they've gone into it in good form. And we talked about them always seeing themselves as the underdog. And I kind of think in situations like this, is this one that holds them back? Because...

they're maybe thinking this is Barcelona we're playing against and we're just little Atletico Madrid. Of course, it'd be nice if we could go there and get a great result, but a draw would be good. That would be a good result for us. And that sort of plays into the players' minds maybe a little bit. But I do think when you've got the Mino Malo,

We're going off the back of a weekend when Leganes have just gone and secured a pretty stunning victory away to Barcelona, coming off Las Palmas, going to Barcelona and winning as well. And dropping the eight points against Beres and against other teams like El Saltavigo. So Barcelona will look at this fixture, I think, as the best fixture for them at this point in time.

because they're at home, they're against an opponent who if they do beat, it sort of shows, right, we're back, we're still top, but we're back, right? Whereas Atletico Madrid almost have more to lose. It sort of sounds silly in that sense, but Atletico Madrid could go here and win and it would be a brilliant moment for them. But if they don't win, the same questions will keep coming up. Was this the moment? And was this the moment that we've almost let by? Because we could have gone out in front at this point in the season. Now we have the two-week break to sort of look back and reflect on everything. But I think that they need, I think,

athletic ability to have truly evolved and we keep talking about they tried to do that this is going to be the best test of the entire season so far I haven't said that we talked about the Champions League they went to PSG didn't put in a good performance at all but won it in the last minute are they going to be able to do that again against Barcelona against a team who they're pretty much comparing themselves along with Real Madrid against all the time but who do you think will win

but we're the third of those teams right so you know a draw is not a bad result and whenever you start to go into games like that maybe it's not the best way to approach it and that has been the case in recent years I think that Atletico Madrid should be looking at this game as one that they could and should

be looking to win in the circumstances of Barcelona's form, of the players they've got unavailable, of the general mood around that club. The atmosphere in Montjuic at the minute is not good. It's not good for a number of reasons, not just the result on the pitch, but what's going on off it. Sort of moves against fans and just the general dissatisfaction of why the club aren't back at Camp Nou just yet and everything else that's going on. So Atletico Madrid have a real moment here. Can they seize it? And that is going to be, I think, the true question of their evolution. And if they can,

I think you might have to start talking about them not just as being title contenders, but as being title favourites. That's just the way it is. If they can win games like this, that is the true test of Atletico Madrid and Diego Simeone. Is he where he is now? Is that actually higher than where he has been before? And that will be the test. And that'll be because I do think Barcelona probably will win. And just on the basis of that, I'm still not convinced that

But that can be the chance to answer doubters like me, right? Yeah, they're coming for you, man. I can see Simeone seething at your comment right now and getting the result away at Barcelona. Gents, really appreciate your time. Colin, Dermot as well. And also Dermot will be dropping a piece on Atletico Madrid later this week. So make sure you keep an eye out for that. Thank you so much for listening. We're back tomorrow.

You've been listening to The Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beal. The executive producer was Aidy Moorhead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. The Athletic FC Podcast is an Athletic Media Company production. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

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