When greatness becomes pallid, when the extraordinary becomes extremely ordinary, it’s almost always a hard story to tell.
The reason that Hans Christian Andersen’s fable of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is still famous today, the one where the king loses sight of reality and is conned by weavers into wearing nothing at all yet the kingdom’s subjects prolong his humiliation by saying nothing, isn’t just to teach us a lesson about the societal urge to fawn at the feet of the high and mighty. One part of this morality tale also explains that it can feel awkward, ungrateful, even opportunistic, to shout “Take a look in the mirror!” when the once-majestic has become myopic, muddled and middling.
Which, of course, brings us to: the Madrid derbi, the state Atletico Madrid are in, the racism aimed at Vinicius Jr., how Emperor Diego Simeone is performing and how soon someone, like the brutally honest child in the Danish fable will shout out: “Cholo’s got no clothes on!” Please don’t be fooled by Madrid’s single-goal victory margin from Sunday’s heated, sometimes spectacular, but disturbing derbi Madrileno.
Atleti were largely atrocious. Again.
The short-sighted, the misguidedly loyal, those who fear change, and those who quake at paying off Simeone’s eight figure annual salary multiplied by the 20 months remaining on his contract (approximately €33m if there’s not a specified, lower, rescission clause amount) will point out that Atleti’s two best defenders, Stefan Savic and Jose Maria Gimenez, were missing.
They’ll bluster that Los Rojiblancos won this derbi at the Metropolitano only last May. That the home side had an energetic first 15 minutes on Sunday. They’ll say: “Can’t you see the beauty of his ermine and how finely tailored Cholo’s robes actually are?” They’ll say: “Can’t you be satisfied with previous [trophy] magnificence?”
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But calling out the current decrepit state of Atleti’s match sharpness, match stamina, tactics, defending, attention to detail, competitiveness, mentality, creativity, injury prevention, playing system and player morale doesn’t come solely from this defeat during which the 2021 champions were limp, bewildered, third best in a two-horse race and, ultimately, were even gifted their consolation goal.
This pallid attitude, this loss which already leaves them eight points behind Madrid after only six matches, is representative of an alarming decline. It requires to be a turning point. Cholo Simeone’s postmatch assessment like many managers under pressure, bore little actual relationship to what happened.
The hard fact is that at no stage after Rodrygo ruthlessly scored Aurelien Tchouameni’s brilliantly crafted pass for the opening goal in the 15th minute, did Atleti truly believe they could win. No urgency, no forcefulness — scant self belief.
