Baena at the top of the shape works better against a team that comes at you than one that sits in
La Liga matchday four kicks off at 16:15 CEST on Saturday 5 September at San Mamés. Simeone will probably name more or less the same eleven that started in Seville. All six of the Spanish projected line-ups I have seen put Baena at the top of the shape, and the only splits are Hancko or Romero at centre-back and Hjulmand or Koke in midfield. Sørloth is left out of the squad for a fourth match running with a muscle injury, Jonathan David, signed on deadline day, only joined the group on Wednesday, and Julián Álvarez is back in the squad but expected to start on the bench.
I think keeping this shape against a high-pressing side is the right call. Terzić said on Friday that "we want to be a team that presses very high, that always plays with courage on the ball and that plays through combinations". A team that comes at you leaves room both in front of its back line and behind it, and the surest way to get in behind is the pattern from the first half in Seville: win the ball, break in transition, and have runners arriving from deep. If anything, the fit is better than against a side that sits in.
Terzić has spoken about how hard this shape is to pin down. "They are always rotating positions and their shape on the pitch, and that is our challenge. We have to communicate well." From a defender's point of view, it is a line-up where it is not obvious who you are supposed to pick up.
Asked about it, Simeone answered like this: "Playing with more positional forwards is always different from playing with attacking midfielders arriving from deep. The truth is that football changes a great deal and it depends on the players." Whether or not he will field a nine, he has not said.
The worries are being forced to go long, and sitting back after going ahead
The first is the midfield and back line panicking under the press and hoofing it. The men ahead of them are Baena, Lee Kang-in and Lookman, and none of them is a specialist at holding the ball up with a defender on his back. If the long ball does not stick, it comes straight back and Atlético are pinned in again. The question is whether Hancko and Pubill, Hjulmand and Barrios can keep the ball moving under pressure and play round the press. If they can, the space behind a team that has stepped up is there waiting.
The other is what happens after the first goal. In Seville, Atlético were 3-0 up inside the first half and then got pushed so far back that Sevilla's touches in the Atlético box rose from five before the interval to more than 20 after it. Simeone himself said of the second half that "from about the 20th minute we were running out of energy and Sevilla's push left us without goalscoring situations", and ItC wrote that they retreated into their own defence and paid for it. Score first at San Mamés and Athletic will have no option but to come further forward, and that is where I expect the chances for a second to multiply. Go for a second or protect the one: if they drop off, the nervous spells get longer.
It is no bad thing that Julián's first game back comes away from home
The window shut at 23:59 on 1 September and Julián's move did not happen. From 26 to 28 August he missed group training, unwell according to the club, and did not travel to Seville. He rejoined the full session on the 30th, and his name is on the 24-man squad list EFE reported on the 4th. Simeone said on Friday that "he is training very well, he will be in the squad and he will be part of the group that goes out to play in Bilbao", and did not say whether he starts. Every projected line-up has him on the bench.
On 29 August Mateu Alemany mentioned that he had been chatting with the player at training the day before, "and he was fine. Everything normal." Simeone also said on Friday that "we all judge", and that "we have to judge less and concern ourselves more with learning".
That his first game back in the squad is away from home is no bad thing for him. When he came on in the 66th minute against Villarreal, the whistles rang round the Metropolitano. What he will get at San Mamés is the home crowd booing, and every away player gets that. Terzić has said that "I also have to prepare my team for the possibility that Julián Álvarez is on the pitch". If he gives everything in a short spell off the bench, there should be a few fewer whistles the next time he plays at home.
The numbers do not yet show that Grimaldo is a different player from Ruggeri
After Seville, ItC, AS and Marca all pointed to moments in Grimaldo's defending, and ItC's 5 was the joint-lowest mark among the starters. The defensive moments are in the match report, so here I want the attacking numbers. His predecessor Ruggeri made 26 league appearances last season, 20 of them starts, with no goals and three assists, and seven assists across all competitions. Grimaldo's record reads nothing like that. In three years at Leverkusen he scored 30 and set up more than 40 in 145 games, and last season alone he had eight goals and eight assists in 29 Bundesliga matches. Yet in two games for Atlético, FotMob has him on zero chances created, zero assists and three touches in the opposition box in total. He was an unused substitute in the opener against Málaga, so we have seen 180 minutes, which is too early to judge.
Even so, today should bring him more moments with the ball at his feet and facing forward. A side that presses from the front leaves room behind it, and if he can get into the space the Athletic right-back leaves when he pushes up, that turns straight into a goalscoring chance. His defending also needs to come up from what he showed in Seville. Asking for both at once is a lot, but at Benfica, where he was from 2016 to 2023, left-back was his position.
Thirteenth-placed Athletic are not as easy as the table suggests
Atlético go into the game fourth on seven points. Real Madrid lost 1-0 to Betis on Friday, so the top three are Barcelona, Real Madrid and Betis, level on nine points having played different numbers of games. A win here takes Atlético to 10 and top of the table until Barcelona play on Sunday. In a week when Madrid have lost, this is the place to build some momentum.
Athletic are 13th on three points. No signings from outside the club this summer, no European football, and three results to start: a 3-1 defeat by Sevilla, a 2-0 defeat by Barcelona and a 2-0 win over Celta. By the count of Deia, the Bilbao daily, they have won one of their last five at home, and Terzić has said that "now we have a good opportunity to start picking up points at home" and that "there is no team in the world that is invincible, above all when you play at home". Yuri Berchiche, sent off against Sevilla, has served his one-match ban and was back for Celta.
I do not look at the table and see an easy win. In the 2-0 over Celta they outshot their opponents 17 to 8. And San Mamés is a ground where, in eight league visits since 2018-19, Atlético have never scored more than once. The last five have alternated between win and defeat: last December it was a 1-0 defeat, Berenguer on 85 minutes, and the last Atlético win was August 2024, a single Correa goal in second-half stoppage time. This one looks like another game settled by one goal, and I want Atlético to be the side that gets it first.
Whether the midfield can play through the press, whether Atlético keep coming forward after scoring first, and how many times Grimaldo gets in behind the Athletic right-back: those are the things I will be watching. Anfield comes on the 9th, with three clear days in between, and I want to go there off the back of a win.