COLUMN: Atletico Madrid's secret weapon arrives just in time for Champions League clash with Inter

Before Pablo Barrios this season, the last under-21 player to log more than 1,000 minutes in a single campaign for Atletico Madrid it was Joao Felix in 2019-20. As you may not remember, it was Felix's first season in Madrid after his €126 million move, and the dawn of what many thought would be a new superstar of the game.

In other words, it usually requires quite unique circumstances for Diego Simeone to give prominence to young footballers. Given the lack of examples in recent times, when a player like Barrios emerges, it is a good idea that he has been marked as an exceptional case, and that your interest should be aroused.

Perhaps the most important caveat of Barrios' rise this season is that it has come against the backdrop of disruption. He missed a month through injury between September and October, while a meniscus tear suffered against Feyenoord in November kept him out for just under two months.

In a campaign where it seems Simeone hasn't been entirely sure what to do with the third central midfielder (along with Koke and Rodrigo De Paul), a healthy Barrios would have been in line for more prominence than him he already had. And with more than 1,000 minutes to his name in such circumstances, there's every chance he'd be a fixture in midfield by now, barring those bouts of injury.

What you do neighborhoods tend to be involved whenever possible is not just for ability. Of course, it helps, but the increasing matter of compatibility between the player and the team is also a big factor. As his talent comes to the fore, there is now (conveniently) a greater need than at any other time in the Simeone era.

Take their recent 1-1 draw against Real Madrid, for example. Although Atletico clearly intended to approach the game with relative caution and prioritize their defensive shape first, the home team's 62% possession in the first half hour quickly became suffocating.

Where once the idea might have been to simply accept the pattern of the territory, increase the aggression from a deeper defensive shape, and try to get back into the game through counter-attacks, Atlético's reaction was channeled in a very different way. To watch Diego Simeone in the opening half hour was to see a man begging for only one thing: the ball. His repeated message of “quiet“Through words and gestures it was a request for calm, but more specifically, calm so he could find his football.

More than ever under Argentina, there is a commitment in his team to be the protagonists, and that requires specific attributes in specific areas of the field. First, to be able to build the type of football they want and have control of the game. And secondly, to be able to advance the game and be effective once the conditions are there.

Atletico have averaged 13.3 streaks of 10+ passes per game in LaLiga this season; a considerable jump from the 2019-20 campaign when Joao Felix first arrived (7.7), and the point at which the impending evolution of the team really started to become a topic. Meanwhile, Koke averages 87 passes for 90 and completes 92% of those in LaLiga this season – by far his two highest marks in a single campaign like this one.

Seen in what has happened in recent seasons, the speed of Barrios in this brave new world for Atlético becomes quite clear.

It is not that the 20-year-old is a generational passer, who just so happens to land at the point where Atletico are in the process of diversifying their possession game. What the natural game of Barrios brings, however, is a mixture of dynamism and technical ability that makes him a problem solver in the current intention of the team.

Even at this early stage of his career, Atlético needs his association skills. Whether it's passing, carrying or moving off the ball, the youngster already looks like someone who knows how to weave play inside each third of the ball. terrain. The cherry on top of that is his ability to dunk off the dribble, which he has learned to do with increasing efficiency.
Barrios is averaging 2.8 goals per 90 in LaLiga this season; the most of any Atletico player. At the same time, he not only has the best success rate in his side, but in the entire League as a whole (78%), having completed 28 of his 36 attempts in the competition this term.

While dribbling is a characteristic more associated with the wing in today's game, and the preferred tool to create individual advantages in many elite teams, for Barrios it speaks more about his comfort in midfield traffic. Indeed, in the age of needing solutions to the pressure of the opposition, the young man is an escape artist as much as a creator of advantages.

Even if he retains the latter – especially when he plays as an insider and not filling in for Koke – modifying his way of playing into a midfield presence as a whole is the task that he will have to continue to refine. The prize for both Simeone and Barrios, if it reaches a point of completion, will be to add the characteristics of a no. 10 in the silhouette of an all-terrain midfielder.

“He's a boy who grew up like”arrival“from the center of the field and has the drive to bring the ball towards the penalty area to shoot or assist,” said Spain U21 coach Santi Denia, speaking in September.

“I don't like to hold back players because you take away their natural characteristics. What (Barrios) has to do is learn to choose his moments when he lets go.

It's worth remembering that Barrios has only started 15 games in La Liga to date, while he's only played the full game on five occasions. For all the promise he has shown in his first eight months in the senior set-up, his biggest improvements will only be achieved by playing and competing on a weekly basis over several years.

But having already worked in Simeone's plans at the age of 20, it can be said that the biggest barrier has already been overcome.