• Atlético.Simeone loses Carrasco, recovers Lemar and "possibly" Dembélé

A year ago, under normal circumstances, the only defensive question at Atlético consisted in knowing who would be Felipe's teammate.

And as the version of Hermoso was quite different from what it is today, and Giménez was entangled with muscular problems, because between him and Savic they were taking the matter forward.

At this time, the Brazilian central defender had just contained the then European champion, Liverpool, in the Metropolitan, and would still give another masterclass at

Anfield

, to seal the ticket to the quarterfinals in the extension.

Football, like the rest of the planet, was stopped by the coronavirus.

A year later, the Brazilian is still far from that wall that he was.

«Genetically it is something else.

Felipe finds it difficult to adapt.

He is a physicist, who after confinement is having a hard time, ”Prof. Ortega maintained back in May, immersed in a second express set-up with which to undertake the closure of the course.

It took Felipe almost two months to understand what Simeone was asking of him.

"He is a player who needs a longer preparation time to reach his best level," acknowledged the coach, after, for the first time in his career, physical problems knocked him out in June.

The center-back, who will turn

32

in May and was the best signing until March of last year (

20 million to Porto

), only played three full games of the 11 that closed the competition.

In the quarterfinals of the Champions League, against Leipzig, he barely had a minute.

The trend continues this season, where, in addition, in that defensive mutation of Simeone, betting on the three centrals, he does not just feel comfortable either.

Being healthy, the Giménez-Savic-Hermoso trio is not negotiated.

Among other things, because Felipe has not shown the solidity that made him essential.

In the League, they have only played half of the 22 games in full (1,124 minutes).

That same scheme of three defenses and two lanes was also choked on his predecessor,

Diego Godín

, as soon as he landed at Inter Milan.

For a late footballer like Felipe (he debuted as a professional at the age of 20), the tactical novelties tend to be harsher to digest.

«I find it difficult to think very fast when I have the ball.

People usually learn that when they are young, "he recalled in 2020, during an interview with this newspaper.

To Hermoso, however, the new drawing has propelled him.

The return of Lemar

This Saturday, in the second duel in a row with Levante, Felipe, a substitute at the Ciutat de Valencia, returns for

Savic's suspension

.

And he does it with Atlético trying to regain the defensive strength lost at the beginning of the year, where they have only left a clean sheet in one of their eight games.

The own goal in Mendizorroza or the doubts against Cádiz or Celta, where he walked to rest on the wire of the second yellow, have not helped him mentally either.

In the club they have not lost confidence: "It's just a parenthesis, it will be the same as always."

A battle for the League to which Lemar (and perhaps Dembélé) joins, after overcoming the Covid, but Carrasco will not be there, with physical problems and the duel against Chelsea just around the corner.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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  • First division

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  • Atlético de Madrid

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