Alberto Carballo: 'With this attack, Atlético can't win anything'

Alberto Carballo's verdict is blunt: Atlético's attack is unworthy of a title contender. He also points to Simeone's mistake in leaving the side without players capable of keeping the ball, and misses a sense of defiance in the closing stages.

Asked by Rubén Uría, Alberto Carballo sums it up in one line: with the attack it has shown this season, Atlético cannot win anything. Not LaLiga, not anything. The attacking numbers, he says, are far off elite level and unworthy of a team that wants to compete for something.

He acknowledges that Atlético were the better side in the first half, although Barça were already starting to grow into the game, and explains the draw with one idea: big teams need very little to score against you, while Atlético needed a lot to get a goal. After the break came a tactical change from Flick that the team could not cope with: they dropped deep, stopped pressing in the same way and conceded the second goal when the shape broke down.

For Carballo, Simeone's big mistake was that, after his substitutions, the team was left without anyone to keep the ball, play a pass or unsettle the opposition. So much so that the last 25 minutes were too much for Atlético, who also showed neither the courage nor the defiance to at least put balls into the box.