Even after Tottenham, this is a match in which Atlético cannot afford to drift from their structure
Atlético Madrid host Getafe in La Liga Matchday 28 immediately after beating Tottenham 5-2 in the Champions League. The timing brings momentum, but this is not a game they can approach by simply riding the wave. Getafe are no longer the side that stumbled through January. Since the start of February they have taken four wins, one draw and one defeat from six league matches, and they remain a team capable of protecting the game with low possession and deciding it through a small number of moments.
Understanding why they have improved matters if we want to read this match correctly. In late December, leading striker Borja Mayoral suffered a serious knee injury, and Getafe’s attack fell into dysfunction. They took two draws and two defeats from four league games in January and scored only three times. Draws against Rayo Vallecano and Girona at least stopped the bleeding, but home defeats to Real Sociedad and Valencia left a heavy mood around the Coliseum. The shift began with the winter market. Mid-January brought Martín Satriano from Lyon, late January brought Luis Vázquez from Anderlecht, and early February added Veljko Birmančević from Sparta Prague. Those were not cosmetic additions. In particular, the Satriano-Vázquez front pairing clicked quickly, and once the results turned, the mood of the squad changed with them.
The 0-1 defeat to Sevilla on February 22 remains the exception rather than the trend. Around it, Getafe took wins over Alavés, Villarreal, Real Madrid and Real Betis. A team that had been pulled to within seven points of the relegation zone in January climbed to ninth place on 35 points within six weeks, stretching the gap over the bottom three to 10. The trajectory is obvious. Atlético having more of the ball at home would be the natural script, but having possession and finishing the game on their terms are not the same thing. That distinction is likely to define the night.
The structure behind Getafe’s rise: recruitment, defensive design and the Milla axis
The mistake to avoid with Getafe is treating their February form as little more than a run of results. There are clear structural reasons behind the recovery.
Winter recruitment removed the attacking bottleneck
The biggest turning point was the arrival of the front two mentioned above. As Total Football Analysis noted in its tactical breakdown, the Satriano-Vázquez pairing gives José Bordalás’s 4-4-2 a double threat it previously lacked. Satriano, at 187 cm, can drift toward the flank almost like a false nine and drag centre-backs away from the middle. Vázquez then attacks the space left behind with direct vertical running. Instead of facing one striker to track, opposing back lines are forced to solve two priorities at once. Both winter arrivals have already scored multiple league goals, which is enough to say that January’s attacking drought has been resolved at a structural level rather than by short-term variance.
A defensive design with one of the league’s lowest xGA figures
The second pillar behind their surge is the quality of the defensive structure. Getafe’s season xGA sits at roughly 27.7, which places them among the best in the league. Their average possession is around 40 percent, the lowest in La Liga, but that lack of possession is not weakness. It is part of the design. This season Bordalás has alternated between the traditional 4-4-2 and back-five structures such as 5-3-2 and 5-4-1 depending on the opponent. Against Real Madrid, Getafe won to nil with 23 percent possession in a 5-4-1. Against Betis, they won 2-0 with 28.9 percent. In both matches they kept the proportion of shots on target low and reduced the quality of the efforts that reached David Soria. Letting the opponent have the ball is itself part of the defensive plan. This is not a team that merely hopes to survive before being broken. It is a team built to stop high-quality chances from emerging in the first place.
Soria has completed the picture. He has started all 27 league matches this season and, according to ESPN data, has produced 87 saves and eight clean sheets. Against Real Madrid he made seven saves, six of them from inside the box, and against Betis he denied both Cucho Hernández from a free kick and Cédric Bakambu from close range. The team structure lowers the quality of the chances against them, and Soria handles what still gets through. That two-layer stability explains how Getafe have conceded only twice across their last six league matches.
Luis Milla, the side’s designer on the ball
Luis Milla is the figure Atlético cannot ignore in possession. He already has eight league assists this season, a return that places him among the strongest creators across Europe’s top five leagues. He excels at choosing the right passing target out of limited possession sequences. Against Villarreal he helped generate the pass into the box that led to a penalty, and against Betis he set the attacking rhythm through combinations with Satriano and Vázquez. Football Espana called him "Getafe’s best player again" after the Betis match. As the hub that maximises the strengths of the reinforced front two, Milla is central to the qualitative change in this attack.
The Real Madrid match was the most revealing example. Getafe finished with 23 percent possession and only three shots on target from nine total attempts. One of those was enough: a ferocious Satriano volley from near the edge of the area after Mauro Arambarri’s headed layoff. They do not need many possessions if they can turn one sequence into a goal. That ability rests on three pillars: the winter recruitment, the defensive structure and Milla’s distribution. From this writer’s point of view, that is what makes Getafe so uncomfortable for Atlético. A team that merely sits deep can be pushed back. A team that can suffer and still create decisive moments demands a level of attacking density that goes beyond possession alone.
The issue is not pinning Getafe back. It is pinning them back all the way
Atlético are likely to control the game at home, but the important question is not the possession figure itself. It is whether they can sustain territorial pressure without giving Getafe a platform for counters or release.
The first condition is to make the press from the front fully committed. Getafe are not a team that want long possessions, but that does not mean they can be left alone. Atlético need to stop them from settling, deny them clean starting points for progression and keep the second-ball recovery zone high. As Getafe showed against Villarreal, compressing midfield and holding a high line to squeeze the game into central areas can work even against stronger opponents. The danger for Atlético would be mistaking the length of their territorial dominance for control and then allowing Getafe’s first clean progression to flip the flow of the match. Getafe can do exactly that.
The second condition is to chase multiple goals once the game is pushed toward Getafe’s box. A 1-0 lead against this kind of opponent can make the match long and uncomfortable. As Satriano showed against Betis when he chipped the advancing goalkeeper for the second goal, Getafe know how to make a low-scoring script feel like home. The flip side is that if Atlético can score early and keep leaning toward a second, they can shake the foundations of Getafe’s defensive design. Crosses, second balls, loose balls and set pieces all matter here. The key is whether Atlético can keep creating the scent of a second goal during the periods when Getafe are pinned deep.
Another point to watch is which shape Bordalás chooses, 5-4-1 or 4-4-2. He used the 5-4-1 to defend deep against Real Madrid, but pushed with a high line against Villarreal. That flexibility means Atlético will need an attack with real density rather than sterile circulation from side to side. Recover high, accelerate again, and finish the move. The ability to repeat that sequence may decide both the scoreline and the performance level.
Three players worth watching within the rotation
With Champions League legs in the group, it is difficult to state Atlético’s starting eleven with confidence. Still, if we think about the structure of this match, Alexander Sørloth, Thiago Almada and Álex Baena stand out as three especially interesting names.
Sørloth is first because his value as a scorer in this kind of game is enormous. He has 16 goals in all competitions this season and scored a hat-trick against Club Brugge on February 24. The numbers already show that he can deliver even in rotation-heavy matches. He began the Tottenham game on the bench and did not have to play a full 90, so the conditions are there for a bigger role now. Against an opponent that defends low with bodies around the box, the value of a striker who can complete moves inside the area rises sharply. Sørloth matters not only for crosses, but also for loose balls and final touches in crowded moments. And given that Getafe’s xGA is among the best in the league, Atlético may not get a huge volume of clean chances. That only increases the weight of Sørloth’s finishing.
Almada is the player who could deliver the right kind of service into those situations. Can he receive on the half-turn in tight spaces, change the rhythm at his feet and thread the final pass near the box? Against Getafe, the key is less about spectacular open-field creativity and more about recognising spaces once Atlético have established pressure. Just as Milla helps design Getafe’s attack from midfield, Atlético also need a designer of the final phase. If Almada can create more forward-facing moments in central areas and the half-spaces, Atlético’s possession will stop being possession for its own sake.
Baena could also become one of the decisive figures, though the recent context around him has been difficult. He did not appear against either Real Sociedad or Tottenham, which makes this a meaningful moment if he is given minutes. His quality from the outside is obvious, but in a match like this it will not be enough for him to stay wide and deliver. Against a side that packs bodies deep, he needs to find his way into the half-spaces and central corridors, then slip decisive passes into the area. From this writer’s point of view, if anyone in Atlético’s current midfield can provide the kind of one-touch final ball usually associated with Antoine Griezmann, it is Baena. Whether he can show signs of recovery here could have a direct effect on Atlético’s scoring level.
The viewing keys: Getafe’s structural choice and the smell of the second goal
There are three clear things to watch in this match.
The first is Bordalás’s choice of formation. Does he sit deep in a 5-4-1, or does he compress midfield with a 4-4-2? That choice changes the whole structure of the match. A 5-4-1 would turn the game into a question of whether Atlético can strip away the final layer despite dominating possession. A 4-4-2 would make the battle for second balls in a more violent midfield contest the central issue.
The second is whether Atlético can keep winning the ball back high. If they can, Getafe will be forced to stay close to their own box and Atlético can keep launching second attacks. If the first recovery after loss becomes loose and Getafe are allowed one progression at a time, the match will tilt toward the kind of uncomfortable scenario in which Satriano or Vázquez can turn a small chance into a goal.
The third is whether Atlético can keep creating the feeling of a second goal during their dominant spells. The longer the score stays at 1-0, the more likely the game becomes Getafe’s kind of game. Even Real Madrid were held scoreless despite finishing with 77 percent possession, which is a reminder that possession by itself is not enough to break this side. If Atlético are to control this at home, they need to keep moving closer to the second goal while the game is still leaning their way.
Kickoff is at 00:15 Japan time on March 15. The real question is not whether Atlético can carry over the emotional high of Tottenham, but whether they can execute their own structure against a Getafe side transformed by winter recruitment and now built to win even without much of the ball, through defensive design and Milla’s passing. That is where the true intrigue of this match lies. We will bring you the match report after the final whistle.