Giuliano: all the talk is of nepotism, not the spark he gives Atlético

Rubén Uría sees Giuliano as an academy product who gives his all and lifts the crowd. Walter Zimmerman turns the debate about his surname on its head, and Alberto del Pozo recalls the move in which he snuffed out a counter-attack and then turned up in the box like a number nine a minute later.

Rubén Uría keeps stressing Giuliano's intangibles. Fans watch a first half in which nothing happens, and suddenly a skinny lad appears, sprints 60 metres, throws himself at an opponent's feet, keeps repeating the effort and gets the crowd on its feet. For him, Giuliano is a source of academy pride and, like him or not, there is one thing nobody can deny: he gives everything. If he were technically what some people claim, he would be worth €150 million.

Walter Zimmerman sums it up in one line: there is plenty of talk about Giuliano getting in through connections, but not about the energy he plugs into the team. His game is infectious for his teammates, and Zimmerman points out that the 15 straight wins in the 2024-25 season also came when he broke into the starting XI and brought balance and defensive work.

Alberto del Pozo believes Atleti play with 12 men when Giuliano is on the pitch, especially when he comes off the bench. He describes a sequence against Deportivo de La Coruña: around the 65th or 70th minute, Giuliano tracks back to cut out an extremely dangerous counter-attack, the defenders congratulate him, and a minute later he is in the box heading at goal like a number nine. That kind of dynamism, he says, is something he only sees in him and in Marcos Llorente.