Atletico still seeking first win

Span­ish heavy­weights Atletico Madrid are still seek­ing their first La Liga vic­tory this sea­son.  In four games they’ve drawn two and lost two and they face the daunt­ing task of trav­el­ing to Valencia’s Mestalla Sta­dium on Sat­ur­day as they attempt to get it right at the fifth attempt.

Over the last cou­ple of weeks my ‘game of the week’ style arti­cles have focused heav­ily on Eng­lish foot­ball, being Eng­lish this is under­stand­able but I will cer­tainly be check­ing out La Liga action on Sat­ur­day night.  You could argue that the tal­ent now resides in Spain and not Eng­land.  Cris­tiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi could all stake a claim for the best player in the world and Span­ish foot­ball is per­haps a more skill­ful, if slightly slower, brand than the Eng­lish game.

Atletico and Valen­cia are blessed with some out­stand­ing foot­ballers.  Diego For­land, Simao and Ser­gio Agureo all ply their trade in Madrid and are all out­stand­ing play­ers.  Argen­tine Aguero in par­tic­u­lar is an excit­ing young tal­ent and I’m sure he will enjoy a very suc­cess­ful career.  Valen­cia are a club in tur­moil with mas­sive debts to pay on their new Mestalla sta­dium but they resisted bids for their top stars over the sum­mer trans­fer period and kept the big names.  Los Che’s star man is with­out a doubt David Villa, the Spaniard, who is per­haps the best striker in the world, was the sub­ject of huge bids by Real Madrid and Barcelona but Valen­cia man­aged to hang on to him.  In mid­field Valen­cia still have a wealth of tal­ent with Joaquin and David Silva just two of the big names vying for places in the start­ing eleven.

I touched ear­lier on the fact Atletico had endured a dif­fi­cult start to the sea­son.  They had high hopes before the sea­son kicked off and some had even sug­gested they had a decent chance of tak­ing the title.  How­ever, four games with­out a win and a very dis­ap­point­ing 0–0 Cham­pi­ons League draw against Cypriot out­fit Apoel Nicosia I doubt many are bet­ting on Ateletico suc­cess this sea­son.  Under­stand­ably man­ager Abel Resino is under pres­sure at the moment but he claims not to be wor­ried and feels one win will turn things around.

He said:  “I’m going to do all that I can to turn the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion around. I’m not wor­ried about, nor am I think­ing about, my future. I’ll con­tinue to search for solu­tions for the team.

“The ten­sion being felt by the team is pro­duced by a lack of con­fi­dence. We won’t get it back until we win again.

“The squad need to stick together. One match can resolve the problems.”

Valen­cia are under­stand­ably heavy favourites with the La Liga bet­ting odds but Atletico have a squad capa­ble of get­ting a result any­where.  The Madrid side need to get back to win­ning ways soon though or Rosino may well be out of a job.

Atletico still seek­ing first win, 5.0 out of 5 based on 2 rat­ings

Tagged as: Atletico Madrid, Valencia