Diego Simeone guided the Vicente Calderon side to their first title since 1996 last term, sealed with a draw against Barcelona on the final matchday of the season and they will be keen to prove their surprise win was not a fluke.
Nevertheless, Madrid and Barcelona have both spent heavily this summer and will be hopeful of dethroning Atleti to restore order, while Valencia could also play a role following the takeover by Singapore businessman Peter Lim.
Although La Liga has lost Diego Costa, Filipe Luis and Carles Puyol, there are still plenty of high-profile names around in Spain, with Lionel Messi, Neymar, Andres Iniesta, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Koke, Arda Turan, Paco Alcacer and Carlos Bacca among the standout stars.
Meanwhile, the incoming transfers of players like Luis Suarez, James Rodriguez and Toni Kroos are arguably the biggest deals of the summer window, while the moves of Ivan Rakitic, Mario Mandzukic, Antoine Griezmann and Jeremy Mathieu all have not gone unnoticed either.
Despite the presence of so many world-class attackers, however, it was Atletico's dogged defending that won them the title last season rather than the individual brilliance of one of the aforementioned players.
Their average of 24.6 tackles per game is not only the highest of all Spanish clubs, but Bundesliga outfit Hoffenheim are the only team from Europe's top five leagues that top them with 24.9 tackles. Barcelona and Madrid, meanwhile, are not even among the top five most-tackling teams in La Liga with 20.5 and 19.8 tackles per game respectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment