When in form the striker is a potent weapon but Diego Simeone’s side will need a far better performance against their local rivals
“Julian is the best player we have,” Diego Simeone told reporters on Wednesday night. “We need to take care of him, to keep him here at Atleti for many years.” And he meant it. The striker has scored 33 goals for the club since his arrival in the summer of 2024. No other player has scored more.
On Wednesday against Rayo Vallecano he ended a six-game scoring drought in emphatic fashion, hitting a hat-trick that lifted both Atleti’s spirits and their position in the league table. Languishing in the lower bottom half before, they are now ninth in the league and two points off the top four, even if they are another nine points behind Real Madrid and four, potentially seven, behind Barcelona.
Before that Wednesday Alvarez had not scored since the opening weekend, when he netted as Atletico fell to Espanyol in Catalonia. But it was not just the Argentine struggling. Simeone’s side remained winless in three as the pressure began to mount, before the 2-0 victory over Villareal that El Cholo would best describe as “a relief”.
Not happiness. Relief. “Winning would be a relief, that’s the reality, the way I see it,” Simeone told Cope before that game. “I would feel relieved. The responsibility is huge.” The pressure is a natural consequence when a club have invested close to €200m in one transfer window like Atletico have.
And that was just last summer. Only Real Madrid outspent them in that window but in the past five years Atletico have spent in excess of €500m, and not even Madrid’s spending has surpassed theirs in that time.
But the last time Simeone’s side won a trophy was in 2021 when they won La Liga. They have finished in third place in three out of the four seasons since then but have no silverware to keep fans and the owners sated.
Hence the growing pressure after their winless start. Relief against Villareal was followed by a loss in the Champions League to Liverpool and a draw at Mallorca. Then came the fixture against Rayo, where Alvarez showed his quality again. But with 13 minutes to go Rayo were 2-1 up and it was only thanks to the Argentina international’s scrappy second goal and then a brilliant outside-of-the-box golazo that Simeone’s side were able to snatch a victory.
At the end, the feeling was that relief was no longer enough. Something more, a much more positive result to show the team’s direction, is needed. There can be no better time than during the visit of the local rivals. Alvarez will be there of course, ready to play a part. “He has to help us,” said Simeone. “And we have to help him, so he can become even better than he already is. Every time he makes a difference, he helps us a lot.”
On Saturday afternoon Madrid will come, to the Metropolitano, nine points ahead of their rivals. There, Simeone will need to show that his expensive squad have what it takes to compete, and he might need just a little bit more than a late rescue from an Argentine striker.
