When people talk about La Liga’s best attacking units, it is understandable that the star studded front lines of Real Madrid and Barcelona immediately come to mind. But, while they don’t boast the star power that goes with having a Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo up front, Atletico Madrid have an elite level strike force of their own, one that has made them a perennial European power.
Atletico Madrid’s strikers aren’t household names to casual fans in the way that Barcelona and Real Madrid’s are. But a group up front consisting of Mario Mandzukic, Antoine Griezmann, and, yes, Fernando Torres, has been incredibly effective. The reason for this is the different things each of the three bring to the table, which compliment each other very well.
We’ll start with Griezmann, whose 22 goals in 32 league games is good for the third best total in La Liga behind just Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The 24-year-old Frenchman has made an impact with his ability to be opportunistic, and wait for just the right moment to sneak in behind the defense to cause havoc.
A perfect example of Griezmann’s ability to get into just the right spot at the right time came on Saturday, as he scored twice against Elche. Neither of his goals were particularly beautiful, but his placement definitely was. Griezmann has a knack for always looking to follow up the efforts of his teammates, which is an ability that separates the elite strikers from the lesser ones.
Mario Mandzukic, who has scored a 10th best 12 goals for Atleti in this La Liga campaign, uses a completely different style to score his goals. Mandzukic has a penchant for winning aerial balls to score for his team. A great example of this came in Atleti’s 4-0 destruction of Real Madrid earlier in the season, where he uses a series of fakes without the ball to deceive to deceive Dani Carvajal, giving himself enough space to comfortably head the ball home.
Together, these two striking styles compliment one another very well, as we’ve seen in the case of Dzeko and Aguero at Manchester City as well as Ronaldo and Benzema/Bale at Real Madrid. And you can see the benefits of such a symbiotic pairing in the team’s results, as Atleti continue to compete for domestic and European trophies despite being on a shoestring budget compared to their Spanish adversaries Barca and Real.
With all of that said, a strike force is nothing without depth to keep it fresh in all of the fixtures that an elite European club have to play in a season, which is where Fernando Torres shines. Torres has scored five goals across all competitions since joining Atleti from AC Milan, including two against Barcelona in cup competition. While that is far from a stunning total, he’s managed to provide enough of a threat to come on as a substitute or start a match against a lesser team to lighten the workload for Griezmann and Mandzukic.
You won’t see Griezmann, Mandzukic, and Torres on the cover of video games. You won’t see them modeling whatever underwear Cristiano Ronaldo likes looking at himself in at the moment. But what you will see, when it comes to Atletico Madrid’s strike force, is the ball in the back of the net.