The winners and losers of Diego Costa’s Atletico Madrid return

Diego Costa seems on the verge of a move back “home” to Atlético Madrid.

Chelsea signed the striker from Atleti back in 2014, and since then he’s led them to win two Premier League titles in three years. He’s scored 59 goals in 120 games for Chelsea, twice bagging 20 in the Premier League (not coincidentally in the two title-winning seasons).

Despite all the controversy, including his feud with José Mourinho in 2015/16 and his bust-up with Antonio Conte in 2017, and the many, many fights and arguments he’s provoked with his fellow players, it can’t be denied that Costa was quite excellent for Chelsea.

Even though he’ll have to wait until January to be registered and actually play for Atlético Madrid (who are currently under a registration ban) this is a very interesting signing. Who benefits? Who doesn’t? Here are the winners and losers of this deal for Diego Costa:

WINNERS

Diego Simeone

He’s got his man back. After three years of trying various different options to replace the departed Diego Costa, Simeone just went and got the original back. It makes so much sense that no one, not the technically skilled man mountain Jackson Martinez nor the hometown hero Fernando Torres, could even come close to matching what Diego Costa gave Simeone.

Simeone’s Atleti are an aggressive side, both in terms of tactics and temperament. That aggression is how they closed the gap between themselves and the big two, and it is essential that they maintained it. But without Costa, Atleti have softened. It doesn’t help that Gabi and Tiago have aged out of being a truly terrifying midfield duo either, but losing Costa was huge.

Now they have him back, they can get their bite back. Simeone can once again get Atleti to play with a ruthless aggression that will allow them to hunt down the Spanish juggernauts and once again establish themselves as a viable third option in the race for La Liga.

Antoine Griezmann

Poor Antoine Griezmann has had to do it all on his own lately. Well, not even lately, really. Since signing for Atlético Madrid in 2014, ostensibly to “replace” Diego Costa, he’s been an isolated figure up-front. Sure, he’s had great success individually and seen his reputation skyrocket, but what has he won?

The fact that he’s been Atleti’s best player has often led to an overreliance on him to produce. If Griezmann didn’t score, there wasn’t really anyone else to do the business. Every strike partner Simeone has tried to use just hasn’t worked for one reason or another, but Costa?

Costa has (some of) the size and power of Mandzukic and Jackson whilst having (some of) the pace of Gameiro. He’s also a sharper finisher than any of them, too, and will be a major goalscoring threat in a way they never were. This balanced skill-set will allow him to perfectly compliment Griezmann, whether as a target man for him to play off, or a runner to chase those delicious through-balls in behind defences.

Julen Lopetegui

By signing for Atlético Madrid now, Diego Costa can’t actually play for them until January. That’s because Atleti are currently serving a registration ban, related to their signing of under 18 talents that was deemed to have breached FIFA rules.

So Costa can sign for Atleti and train with them, but can’t feature in an officially sanctioned FIFA club game (behind closed doors friendlies are alright) until January 2018. So he’ll get plenty of rest in the mean-time and effectively have his pre-season during the Spanish calendar’s hectic January.

This means that by the end of the season Costa, a player who needs to be physically fresh to truly shine, will be in that sweet spot of “mid-season form” just when everyone else is absolutely knackered from playing a full campaign of football.

This means he’ll be in great shape for the 2018 FIFA World Cup (assuming Alvaro Morata hasn’t been so good in his absence that he’s lost his starting spot) and Spain coach Julen Lopetegui will have a world-class striker in prime physical condition ready to unleash hell on the international stage.

LOSERS

Kevin Gameiro

“I had the choice between going to Barca or coming to Atletico,” Gameiro told Le10 Sport (via the Express). “But what am I going to do at Barca? There’s Neymar, [Lionel] Messi and [Luis] Suarez.”

Oh dear, Kevin! Turning down Barcelona (where his arrival would have surely helped the Blaugrana retain La Liga at the very minimum) for Atlético Madrid because you wanted to play more seemed a solid theory at the time. But how about now?

Gameiro had a rough-and-tumble first season for Atleti, scoring 16 goals but disappointing overall, especially in the Champions League semi-finals against Real Madrid. He would surely have expected to improve in his sophomore campaign but now here comes Diego Costa, his manager’s favourite, to crush his hopes and ambitions of being Atleti’s star man. What’s he going to do at Atleti?

Cesc Fabregas (and others)

In the Premier League last season, there were only four combinations of assister-and-scorer that could top Cesc Fabregas to Diego Costa. The Catalan set up four of Costa’s goals (only De Bruyne to Aguero, Alexis to Ozil (both 5), Sigurdsson to Llorente and Eriksen to Kane (both 6) did better).

The two of them have developed a keen understanding of each others games. And there’s no doubt that Cesc will miss having a striker with which he was so in-tune. Moreover, Costa’s antics were such a distraction from all of the surprisingly niggly and moody things Cesc can do on the field.

It’s not just Cesc, either. Nemanja Matic set-up three of Costa’s goals and the combative striker even set-up Willian three times and assisted Hazard thrice as well. He was the focal point of so much of Chelsea’s play that it will be difficult for them to reorganise the side without him.

Defenders in La Liga

Finally, and somewhat jovially, the beast is back! Diego Costa was an argumentative fellow (to say the least) when he played for Atlético Madrid the first time. Even Chelsea, who saw some pretty rough stuff, never really saw the depth of his depravity.

Now he’s back where his mastery of the dark arts is more appreciated (by his coach and fans, anyway) and we will surely see a return to the bruising days of old when he’s dominate opponents both in a footballing sense but also as a person, an interlocutor, a wind-up merchant.

Bruised ribs, grazed knees and hurt egos are coming up!

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