GRIEZMANN SAVES ATLETICO'S PARTY

Striker ensures winning start for Simeone’s side at new home

MADRID intimidating atmosphere of the Vicente Calderon by turning their new home into a “pressure cooker.”

The noise matched the prematch pomp as Spain’s royal air force took part in a flyover, whilst the match ball was delivered by paragliders.

“As a player or a coach I have never seen anything like it,” said Simeone.

“The memory will live with me for the rest of my life. All the Atletico flags flying, the fans involvement, I wanted to go on and play!”

Spanish king Felipe VI, an Atletico fan, was also in attendance, but after all the pre-match fanfare, there wasn’t much for the crowd to get enthused about in the opening 45 minutes.

Barcelona were also made to struggle as they had to come from behind at Getafe to open up a seven-point lead over Real Madrid, who travel to Real Sociedad late yesterday.

However, Barcelona could be without record signing Ousmane Dembele for a number of weeks after the French winger hobbled off in the first half with a hamstring injury.

“Fortunately, it was an important test for us. We managed to turn the game around and that power of reaction the team had means a lot,” said Barcelona boss Ernesto Valverde.

Paulinho’s signing from Guangzhou Evergrande was just one of a number of muchcriticised moves by the Barcelona board following the departure of Neymar to Paris Saint Germain.

But the Brazilian international showed his worth by smashing home Lionel Messi’s through ball to score the winner.

“I’m very happy to score the goal. It was the winner which was the most important thing,” Paulinho told Barca TV.

“It was a difficult game because Getafe have players with quality and we conceded the first goal but we were calm, had patience and went looking for the result.” AFP