Are Atletico Madrid Genuine Contenders for La Liga?

As statements of intent go, the opening of Atletico Madrid’s La Liga 2015/16 campaign was distinctly underwhelming. The pre-season talk of Diego Simeone’s side evolving into a more expansive collective is unfulfilled—for now, at least.

Pretty much all you could say about Saturday’s win over Las Palmas at the Estadio Vicente Calderon was just that. It was a win, and thus a successful opening to the season. That was the essential part of the opening day for a team widely considered among the title favourites, by a number of respected judges including our own Karl Matchett.

The performance, however, was far from fluent against a team that finished in fourth place in last season’s Segunda, even if the visitors—under Rafael Benitez’s former Liverpool assistant, Paco Herrera—were superbly organised.

In fact, it took a couple of excellent second-half saves from goalkeeper Jan Oblak to hang onto those three points. All in all, it was the Atleti we’ve seen so many times before; gritty and economical, just about getting the job done. It was a standard Simeone-era display. As with last season, the band members change, but the song remains the same.

It’s just that after this summer, we expected a little bit more. The purchases of Colombian goal-machine Jackson Martinez, Villarreal’s young Argentinian star Luciano Vietto and fleet-footed winger Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco more than made up for the exits of Mario Mandzukic and even the iconic Arda Turan. Add to that the excellent Antoine Griezmann and a revitalised Fernando Torres, and it all equalled an enviable arsenal.

At the other end of the field Miranda may have left for Inter, but the popular Filipe Luis returned after a difficult year at Chelsea. Miranda’s erstwhile partner, Diego Godin, inked a new deal and will have the richly talented Jose Maria Gimenez at his side this season.

The new signings, though, were fairly discreet against Las Palmas. Jackson was far from his rampant self—though you sense his time will come—and in fact, the prolific centre-forward was the only player in the XI not to have played at the Calderon before. The new trio of Vietto, defender Stefan Savic and Ferreira-Carrasco took no part. The former two stayed on the bench for Saturday night’s game, while the Belgian winger watched it from the stands.

It doesn’t matter in Cholo’s mind if you cost 30 million or came back from a loan, wrote Spanish newspaper Marca on Monday, presumably referring to Oliver Torres, who started against Las Palmas after an excellent season out with Julen Lopetegui’s Porto (Torres, incidentally, repaid Simeone’s faith with a fine display).

That sort of meritocracy is great in theory, and their current experiences will probably be character-forming ones for Vietto (who Simeone already knew well from Argentinian club football) and Ferreira-Carrasco. Yet it’s impossible to ignore that in recent seasons, assimilating new talent into his existing template has been a real problem for Simeone.

Toby Alderweireld, Josuha Guilavogui and Alessio Cerci are all gone after brief and inglorious spells in the Spanish capital. If Cerci has struggled to get going again since returning to Serie A (and be honest, who really thought Atleti were getting the better end of that swap deal when they took Torres?), the other two have augmented their reputations since disembarking for England and Germany respectively.

In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that they’d already been tried and (at least relatively) failed at Atleti, you’d say that Alderweireld and Guilavogui would be exactly the sort of players that the club should be trying to pick up.

The important thing is that Ferreira-Carrasco and company learn from their predecessors’ mistakes. Total immersion in Simeone’s demanding method is essential—this was where Cerci, for example, fell lamentably short—in order to become an authentic rojiblanco. Perseverance is also imperative, as Oblak would probably tell you.

After a tricky start to life at the Calderon, dogged by his big price tag (€16 million), fitness problems and an underwhelming first-team debut in a Champions League loss at Olympiacos, the Slovenian shot stopper has established himself as a big favourite. The Madrid press have even dubbed him "SuperJan."

Oblak spent months backing up a superb Miguel Angel Moya, with onlookers sniffing at how expensive he was for a substitute goalkeeper. He kept his patience, waited for his chance and when Moya was injured against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, stepped in and took his chance. He never looked back.

Patience should be an overall watchword for this new-look Atleti, too. Points, for the moment at least, are more important than panache, especially with Benitez’s El Real still working out what they want to be. Atleti can’t win La Liga in the next two months, but they could certainly lose it in that period of time.

Looking for Atleti to start playing dazzling, five-star football may not be entirely realistic, quite frankly. They are always at their best when locked into a war of attrition. When they have tried to play more attacking, open football, it has often backfired.

Take last season’s Copa del Rey quarter-final against Barcelona, and its second leg in particular. It was absolutely thrilling stuff, and Atleti went out in a blaze of glory at the Calderon, despite ending the match with nine men.

Simeone’s side went for the jugular from the very off, and the coach expressed the immense pride he had for his team after the game. Still, when he was saying this, you half-wondered what had happened to the real Cholo.

Atleti had it all under control. Torres scored in the opening minute, cancelling out Lionel Messi’s goal in the first game. They had Barca exactly where they wanted them. So what did they do? Inexplicably, they kept pushing forward, all heart and no head, and were inevitably picked off by the best front three in world football.

The players who were involved in that game—and more importantly, Simeone—would do well to remember that example. Atleti got to touch the sky by following a very specific plan, not by freestyling. That plan is still a good one, and it’s one that they shouldn’t jettison whatever the makeup of the squad.

It’s up to the new signings to fit with Simeone, rather than the other way around. In that sense, the slog of Saturday’s opener might even be good news. Atleti can challenge for this title, but they can’t do it by trying to play like Barca.