Easy Pickings For Atletico Madrid

Spanish side claim another European title

- Keir Radnedge

Atletico Madrid won their sixth European trophy far more easily than the two-goal scoreline suggested. And the underlying issue from the Europa League Final in Lyon was how the widening of football’s class gap is not only about the “Big Five” and the rest but even within the TV-rich leagues of western Europe.

Last year, Paris Saint-Germain splashed €222 million on Neymar who, apart from the financial flattery, was also misleadingly entranced by the idea that Qatari investment had raised PSG to the level of Barcelona and Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Manchester City.

It took around half a season, even before PSG fell to Real Madrid in the Champions League, for Neymar to understand his misjudgement of the standard of Ligue 1. The evidence was laid out in stark clarity in the Europa Final between the second-best club in Spain and the fourth-best in France.

Once the first goal had gone in, it was game over. Atletico were a class better in every aspect – but there was more to it than that. Marseille were beaten partly because carelessness unmarked in the French league was punished ruthlessly. Clubs who command their own leagues do so not only through their own strength but also because of the weakness of the opposition – which can trick them into a false sense of superiority.

For French football pride there was consolation to be found only in the emergence of Antoine Griezmann as the two-goal man of the match. The 27-year-old France striker was a fan of Marseille as a boy but did not let that affect his commitment to Atletico’s winning cause, even amid speculation that he will be off to Barcelona after the World Cup.