Osasuna will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Atlético Madrid were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 9.07 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Madrid have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Marked 8.40 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Santiago Castro was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.95. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Santiago Castro has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Alavés tried to reorganise, Atlético Madrid did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Madrid have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexander Sørloth trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Álex Baena signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Alavés next, and one man in the Atlético Madrid dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Madrid have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
19 combined actions and 7.58. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Cristian Romero and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
With 8 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Julián Álvarez provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Madrid have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Rodrigo Mendoza and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Atlético Madrid will be judged on one thing only.
Atlético Madrid ran out of time with Málaga. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Julián Álvarez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Atlético Madrid asked and Getafe said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Santiago Castro has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A 1‑0 win over Racing Santander, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Atlético Madrid will try again when the window opens; Middlesbrough may not be selling by then.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Málaga have kept their man, and Atlético Madrid go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Morten Hjulmand and Atlético Madrid agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Atlético Madrid and Middlesbrough have settled on $195.9M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Atlético Madrid asked and Deportivo La Coruña said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Atlético Madrid, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 12 signed and 16 gone
That is the business done at Atlético Madrid until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Alejandro Grimaldo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $402.5M — a club that wants Dávid Strelec enough to be asked twice.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Fran Beltrán
Atlético Madrid asked and Athletic Bilbao said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Atlético Madrid offered $36.1M; Swansea City said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
$26.8M on the table at Middlesbrough. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Atlético Madrid, and it is not being withdrawn.
Atlético Madrid have gone to Málaga with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 8 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Atlético Madrid offered $60.0M; Athletic Bilbao said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Kang-In Lee had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer went to Swansea City this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Julián Álvarez scored in the 88th minute, Sevilla had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Atlético Madrid took the lot.
Álex Baena and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The board have signed the man in the dugout to a longer contract, which says more than any statement of support. Stability is easy to promise and costly to keep.
Spezia have accepted the money. What Atlético Madrid do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Atlético Madrid, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
Rodrigo Mendoza and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Aug 2027
7 new faces, and Atlético Madrid are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The minutes were not coming at Atlético Madrid, so he will look for them at Almería. Everybody involved calls it development; for the player it is simply a chance to play.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Position 3, 83 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Julián Álvarez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Álex Baena is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexander Sørloth signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The coaching staff have set Kang-In Lee something separate to do. Whether it is a weakness being addressed or a strength being sharpened, nobody outside the building will know until it shows up on a Saturday.
The word out of the training ground is that he has been the sharpest man there all week. It is the quietest story a paper carries and it usually runs the week before somebody's run in the side begins.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Atlético Madrid can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Add another name to the list: Leganés have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kang-In Lee. The answer from Atlético Madrid has not changed — yet.
Rodrigo Mendoza was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marcos Llorente signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Marcos Llorente’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Alejandro Grimaldo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Julián Álvarez is on it.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Atlético Madrid would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Atlético Madrid have no good answer.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Robin Le Normand’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hammarby have kept their man, and Atlético Madrid go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Cristian Romero and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
A club from his own country has asked the question, and he has never pretended he did not want to be asked. Atlético Madrid have a conversation ahead of them that they will not win with money.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Carlos Martín and Atlético Madrid agree another 5 years.
Squad12 Jul 2027
7 new faces, and Atlético Madrid are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jan Oblak is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Atlético Madrid, and both men came out saying it was fine.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $94.4M has been paid because Santiago Castro is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Santiago Castro has just signed for Atlético Madrid, and for once the answer mattered.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Santiago Castro is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atlético Madrid heard it as anything else.
Rodrigo Mendoza and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The phone has started ringing about Álex Moreno again, and this time the name on the line is Le Mans FC. Atlético Madrid are listening politely and promising nothing.
38 games, 9 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Atlético Madrid now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Thomas Lemar is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
In brief
The dugoutÁlex Baena has become a man the manager trusts
The offer went to AS Roma this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Madrid have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Cristian Romero wants continental football; whether Atlético Madrid can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Atlético Madrid. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
4 clean sheets from 33 appearances at Eyupspor. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Pablo Barrios was one of the reasons people came, and $109.3M does not replace that by itself.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Rayane Belaid is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The minutes were not coming at Atlético Madrid, so they will be looked for at Mallorca. A loan out is not a goodbye, but it is always a question: about the player, or about the plan.
$63.7M was the most the club would pay and Osasuna were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The chase for Antonio Blanco ended with $31.2M changing hands and Alavés out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The offer from Girona for Pablo Barrios was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Antonio Blanco has, at Atlético Madrid, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
With 9 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Atlético Madrid asked and Athletic Bilbao said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Alavés have accepted the money. What Atlético Madrid do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Atlético Madrid have gone to Osasuna with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Osasuna have kept their man, and Atlético Madrid go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
18 seasons and 594 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Position 3, 83 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The offer from Platense for Juan Musso was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The name of Ademola Lookman has come up in conversations Atlético Madrid were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $70.5M — a club that wants Aimar enough to be asked twice.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Atlético Madrid will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
19 appearances and 0 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Alejandro Grimaldo is on it.
Juan Musso is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Atlético Madrid. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Carlos Martín’s exile
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 83 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Julián Álvarez wants continental football; whether Atlético Madrid can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Ademola Lookman will call it something else in private.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jan Oblak is on it.
It needed Julián Álvarez to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Athletic Bilbao, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Tomás Márquez after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Position 3, 81 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Marked 8.42 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Alexander Sørloth.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Álex Baena in the middle of it, and Getafe unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 8.16 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Marked 8.01 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Atlético Madrid told Alejandro Grimaldo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Julián Álvarez provided it, and the 8.37 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Julián Álvarez in the middle of it, and Celta unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Juan Musso has his answer from Atlético Madrid; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Madrid have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Nicolás González was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.95, and 2 involvements.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Atlético Madrid and Betis in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
A brace, and Álex Baena takes the afternoon — 8.17
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Álex Baena provided it, and the 8.17 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Juan Musso wants continental football; whether Atlético Madrid can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Julián Álvarez signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Atlético Madrid. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
7.81, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Julián Álvarez. 3‑1 against Sevilla, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
With 8 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Sevilla tried to reorganise, Atlético Madrid did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Marked 8.17 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Atlético Madrid pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Nicolás González at his very best
Position 3, 62 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Atlético Madrid can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Atlético Madrid told Robin Le Normand something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jan Oblak is on it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Tomás Márquez after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Atlético Madrid $930.0K. Giuliano Simeone left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Nothing signed, nothing denied, and a lot of people suddenly very careful about their wording. Supporters who have been through one of these know the quiet part lasts months.
523 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Juan Musso and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Atlético Madrid are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Pablo Barrios. 1‑0 against Osasuna, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Atlético Madrid pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Juan Musso's mistake
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
A brace, and Álex Baena takes the afternoon — 8.34
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Álex Baena provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
522 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Atlético Madrid are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marked 8.58 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Morten Hjulmand and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Cristian Romero wants continental football; whether Atlético Madrid can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Atlético Madrid support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Position 3, 52 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Up for the corner, and Pablo Barrios delivers — 7.94
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Pablo Barrios scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Pablo Barrios has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
589 appearances across 18 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Julián Álvarez provided it, and the 8.38 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atlético Madrid heard it as anything else.
6 goals in one match, Julián Álvarez on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Atlético Madrid and Rayo Vallecano.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Silviu Lung has, at Atlético Madrid, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Marcos Parriego has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Atlético Madrid, and 0 appearances in 24 say he has earned the hearing.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Atlético Madrid told Pablo Barrios something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Aleksa Purić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Tomás Márquez to a room that had heard them before.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Atlético Madrid, and it is not being withdrawn.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The phone has started ringing about Rodrigo Mendoza again, and this time the name on the line is Las Palmas. Atlético Madrid are listening politely and promising nothing.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Atlético Madrid will be judged on one thing only.
13 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chase for Fran Beltrán ended with $27.1M changing hands and Girona out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Madrid have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Fran Beltrán has, at Atlético Madrid, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Add another name to the list: Hannover 96 have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Juan Musso. The answer from Atlético Madrid has not changed — yet.
The clubs have shaken hands with Girona; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
$85.5M was the most the club would pay and Tottenham were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Álex Moreno has, at Atlético Madrid, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
$77.5M on the table at Tottenham. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$23.7M on the table at Girona. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The clubs have shaken hands with Girona; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Atlético Madrid have had the benefit of it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atlético Madrid can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Cádiz for Giuliano Simeone was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Salvi Esquivel has agreed terms with Alcorcón for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Alejandro Grimaldo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Alexander Sørloth has his answer from Atlético Madrid; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Pablo Barrios has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nicolás González is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexander Sørloth trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
1 for Dávid Hancko, marked 7.96, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Atlético Madrid can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Marked 8.25 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Mallorca will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Atlético Madrid were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
A brace, and Álex Baena takes the afternoon — 8.31
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Álex Baena provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
27 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Obed Vargas, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Julián Álvarez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Atlético Madrid and Mallorca in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Atlético Madrid, and 0 appearances in 16 say he has earned the hearing.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Atlético Madrid than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
1 for Alejandro Grimaldo, marked 6.76, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.06 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Atlético Madrid can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Atlético Madrid told Jan Oblak something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Alejandro Grimaldo's mistake
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Alejandro Grimaldo is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Atlético Madrid, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sevilla in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
3 goals in 10 games at Elche — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Atlético Madrid updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
3 goals in 13 games at Hajduk Split — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Atlético Madrid updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Álex Baena has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rodrigo Mendoza did not need any: 8.22, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Alejandro Grimaldo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
10 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
4 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Marbella spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
In brief
Player ratingsKang-In Lee was on a different afternoon to everybody else
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Tomás Márquez after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
7.83, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Julián Álvarez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Alavés made Atlético Madrid work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match24 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Atlético Madrid. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Marked 8.59 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Atlético Madrid know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Atlético Madrid can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Rodrigo Mendoza and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Tomás Márquez left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alejandro Grimaldo signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Barcelona on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Rodrigo Mendoza and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Atlético Madrid are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Atlético Madrid will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Julián Álvarez signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alejandro Grimaldo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Atlético Madrid needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Atlético Madrid. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Atlético Madrid, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Cristian Romero was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
With 9 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Atlético Madrid, and 0 appearances in 7 say he has earned the hearing.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Atlético Madrid can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Julián Álvarez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Tomás Márquez could afford to be generous.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nicolás González is on it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Tomás Márquez kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Off the academy pitches and onto a senior team sheet at 14. The debut is the easy part; the second appearance is the one every young player has to earn.
1‑0 against Real Madrid, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Atlético Madrid, and it is not being withdrawn.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Atlético Madrid supporters have already started telling it.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Álex Baena is on it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Tomás Márquez, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Julián Álvarez signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atlético Madrid can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Atlético Madrid until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atlético Madrid heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Atlético Madrid will be judged on one thing only.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Kang-In Lee has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Atlético Madrid than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Real Madrid next, and one man in the Atlético Madrid dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Athletic Bilbao have kept their man, and Atlético Madrid go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
With 10 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Rodrigo Mendoza was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It needed Julián Álvarez to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Real Sociedad, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Tomás Márquez chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Rodrigo Mendoza and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Martín Vargas and Atlético Madrid agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexander Sørloth signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
$21.6M was the most the club would pay and Villarreal were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Cristian Romero and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Edu Altozano has, at Atlético Madrid, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Atlético Madrid are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ademola Lookman signs something — a contract at Atlético Madrid or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kang-In Lee’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Atlético Madrid needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Cristian Romero keeps the shirt for now, at Atlético Madrid's convenience rather than his own.
$21.6M on the table at Villarreal. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atlético Madrid heard it as anything else.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Julián Álvarez and Atlético Madrid agree another 5 years.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $23.5M — a club that wants Ilias Akhomach enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Madrid this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jorge Ríos has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Víctor Vargas has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Atlético Madrid asked and Brighton said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Atlético Madrid hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Alejandro Grimaldo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“70 caps was 70 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 34 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Atlético Madrid.