After the great joy of having been able to eliminate Inter and qualify for the quarterfinals in the Champions League, to the disappointment of being overwhelmed by Barcelona in the League four days later, which is also added to the KO in the semifinals of the Copa del Rey against Athletic Bilbao. Atlético’s season is an emotional up and down that doesn’t look too good. It is always very risky to risk saving the campaign with the exclusive Champions League card, a very capricious competition that Atlético has never won.
Despite the setback of the new defeat at the Metropolitano (the second of the season), Atlético has the consolation of having been placed in the Champions League pot for the quarterfinals by Borussia Dortmund, within the scope of the rival that He seemed more appealing and the one everyone loved.
However, the counterpart is that on Sunday Atlético was left out of the Champions League positions after being overtaken by Athletic Club, in much better shape. Everything indicates that Atlético, Athletic and Girona will play between the three for the two remaining places because Real Madrid (17 points away) and Barcelona (nine points away) have definitively escaped the colchoneros with only nine games left for the match. end of the League.
For Atlético, the defeat against Barcelona also came with the bitterness of seeing how João Félix scored a goal for them again (he already did it in Montjüic, in that case the winning one) and was once again one of the men of the match. On his return to what was his old fiefdom, the Portuguese experienced firsthand what other former Colchonero players, such as Thibaut Courtois, or many years ago Hugo Sánchez, have experienced.
The red and white fans vehemently whistled at João Félix every time he touched the ball and before the game a group of radicals carried out a ritual that Courtois already experienced. On the Paseo de Leyendas, next to the Metropolitano, they burned his shirt on top of the player’s plaque, which they left covered in garbage.
After the match João Félix spoke to ESPN Brazil: “The fans who are in the stands do not know the things that happened here during the time I was here. As you can see, what they say from outside that I get along badly with my former teammates is not It’s true. As you could see, I stopped to talk to Samuel Lino and Thomas Lemar and they all came to hug me, to talk to me, to ask how the family is, to ask me how I was doing and so on. I have nothing against them nor do they. against me, the people outside clearly don’t know what happened inside here.
Signed from Benfica in 2019, (for which he paid 127 million, the most expensive signing in the club’s history) João Félix played three seasons at the Metropolitano without fully establishing himself because he never got along with Diego Simeone. Last season he was already loaned to Chelsea, where they did not want to keep him.
In this season a particular circumstance occurs. João Félix and Atlético could cross paths again in the Champions League because they are in the same part of the draw. To do this, Atlético would have to eliminate Borussia Dortmund and the Catalans would have to eliminate PSG. It doesn’t seem easy but it’s far from impossible. The duel would also have another protagonist from a Barça and now red-and-white past: Antoine Griezmann, although the Colchoneros have already forgiven him.
In the event of said semi-final meeting, the antecedents would be very favorable to the Catalan team. In 24 games with Atlético de Madrid, the Argentine coach has only managed to win against Barcelona twice. Xavi, in his four matches, only knows victory.
