“There is only one Atletico Madrid,” Pep Guardiola declared, in yet another comment from the Manchester City manager that could have been read either way.
That touches on how, under Diego Simeone, there will always be two sides to Atletico Madrid.
This was all articulated by a night at the Metropolitano that was both turgid and thrilling, where they took the greatest pride in one of the most grinding defeats.
It was a dichotomy that could be felt from the evening’s opening drumbeats.
As you walk into the Metropolitano, it is impossible not to be struck by the sheer energy of the place. It sometimes feels the European ground that is closest to offering a South American atmosphere, and it is certainly rare among new stadiums in how it recreates the earthy feeling of the Vicente Calderon. The way the entire crowd comes together for their stirring “Atleti” anthem is intoxicating. Even Guardiola mentioned how there is nowhere like it in Europe.
It really set a tone, a sense that you were in for a big occasion of the type the Champions League should be about. The deafening whistling of the competition anthem only added a greater edge to it all.
And then what happened?
Those same fans were just as loud in booing the taking of the knee. For all the easy romanticism around Atletico, that should be harshly criticised. It also follows a Uefa punishment from the first leg where the club were given a €5,000 fine because of a small group of fans performing Nazi salutes.
The truth is that they have always been a club with a right-wing core, with some of that extending to extremism.
On the more frivolous side of the actual football, one of Simeone’s compatriots would call their ideology “right-wing football”. That was how 1978 World Cup-winning manager Cesar Menotti described Estudiantes’ infamous approach of the 1960s, and they were a hugely formative influence on Simeone.
It is exactly as you can imagine, because we saw so much of it on Wednesday night and throughout the last decade.
It is cynicism, it is anti-football. It is trying to stop play rather than just playing, aggressively defending rather than adventurously attacking, while using every piece of gamesmanship possible.
Simeone’s side set a tone with the first major moment of the match, Felipe’s deliberate collision with Phil Foden. When you do that – and especially when a defender isn’t booked – you can’t really complain about a player trying to get you back by exaggerating contact, as Foden did later on. The lines have been drawn.
It took the English playmaker a while to get into that kind of mood, though. Foden for a long time looked rattled, and off his game.
That was clearly the point. That was the gameplan. Atletico were going to unsettle City, so the game remained unresolved, until they could try and sting them by striking late on. The main question over that was whether Atletico could get the balance and timing right, but there was a clear logic to it.
City are a better team from being a much better-resourced club. If you try and play them at their game, you will likely be beaten, and maybe get beaten badly.
It is impossible to fault Simeone in that regard.
The question is over the extent of it all. Atletico may have been the less powerful club here, but they are no upstarts. Not any more. They have accrued all the riches from almost a decade in the Champions League, to become one of Europe’s super clubs. They only last year tried to set up a Super League. They have made Simeone by far the best paid manager in the world, and are capable of paying over €100m for a talent like Joao Felix.
Yet this is what they produce? It was one shot on goal in the first 135 minutes of the tie.
