Julián Alvarez said sorry but forgiveness must be earned on the field and Sunday would be the perfect place. At 9pm at the Metropolitano, Atlético Madrid play Barcelona. It is the biggest match in Spain right now, a place at the top of the table awaiting the winner; it is also the game the striker they call the Spider planned to play on the other side. That, Alvarez said in Dallas, was his “dream”. Denied that, he must defeat the men he wanted to join to win back the supporters he wanted to walk out on, no better opportunity than now.
He has beaten them before. Last season, Atlético knocked Barcelona out of the Copa del Rey and Champions League. Alvarez scored both times but beneath the surface something had shifted in him and by the time the World Cup came round he admitted his desire to leave for Catalonia. That day, after Argentina beat Algeria, he didn’t name Barcelona and he didn’t need to; everyone knew. “It’s not the time to talk about this but nor can I hide,” he said. “I spoke with the people I needed to and the best thing for everyone is a transfer.”
Turned out that wasn’t true. Atlético didn’t agree then, refusing to sell; Barcelona, so open in their pursuit at the time, may not agree now. In week two of the new season, Alvarez was still in Madrid, whistled and booed by his own supporters, invited to walk off up the tunnel alone while his teammates turned the other way to applaud the fans who had abused him. One chant had started: “Tell him to go,” to which Alvarez probably thought: I’m trying. He had cut a lonely, distant figure, and if that was partly a public staging of his discontent, one more attempt to force his way out, if the fact he didn’t turn up for training over the next two days was as well, it didn’t work: when the transfer window shut six days later, he was still there.
They were still whistling too. Stuck, Alvarez had some making up to do, if only out of convenience, if only for a little while. He left Fernando Hidalgo, the agent whose exit strategy had failed, whom Atlético’s chief executive accused of having led Alvarez astray and who responded by calling the club “liars”. That helped, handing over someone to blame. He also played a bit more and a bit better, if not much to begin with. He at last scored a goal against Stuttgart on 20 October and four days later did it again, this time at home in a 1-0 win over Deportivo A Coruña. “I would like to apologise to our people for my words at the World Cup,” he said after.
Alvarez didn’t deny the way he felt and didn’t say that he no longer wanted to depart, but he did say he had made a mistake in the how and when. “I understand the anger; as a fan I would have been angry too, especially after all they had done to support me,” he said. The coach, Diego Simeone, was relieved. “I am very respectful of those who say sorry because it is not easy to say sorry,” he said. “I am sure Julián is more at peace now.”
It was about time, most fans felt, the least Alvarez could do – four months had passed since that day in Dallas, six weeks since he definitively realised he was staying – but he had waited until there was a goal, a peace offering to go with it. They had cheered it of course, but that didn’t mean embracing him. They also knew, though, that he was probably their best player. “We need lots of goals from Julián to be up there,” Jan Oblak had said in Stuttgart. “He has the quality to score a thousand goals,” Álex Grimaldo said.
He hasn’t yet but it is getting better, if slowly. Having started one of the first seven games, and without getting a goal, he has started five out of eight since, scoring twice. Meanwhile Barcelona, who thought they needed his goals, haven’t.
The summer in which they lost Robert Lewandowski, Marcus Rashford and Ferran Torres, and lost out on Alvarez, led to the reinvention of Raphinha as a No 9 and he is Europe’s top scorer with 19. Nor is it just him: people asked who was going to get the goals; the answer was everyone. Lamine Yamal has 13 goals and 11 assists. Thirteen different players have scored. Barcelona are on course to get more than 150 in the league alone, the chances of them returning for Alvarez receding. Barcelona are all right without him. The clásico reverse was their only domestic defeat after nine straight wins, although that same week they lost in Paris too, and the way it happened revealed a vulnerability.
Hope too for Atlético, for whom things were falling into place. Simeone had to accept Bayern Munich were superior on Tuesday, a step above that they cannot take yet, but in La Liga they have won seven in a row, including victory over their city rivals, Real. There is an assuredness about them, a variety too, optimism. Their record is better than it was at this stage the last time they won the league, the same question bringing the same answer. Who is going to get the goals? Everyone. Alvarez has scored one in the league, but Álex Baena has five, Álex Grimaldo four, Jonathan David and Giuliano Simeone three.
