At the end of this occasionally heated, largely room temperature night of make-or-break Champions League football Atlético Madrid’s travelling fans could be seen still singing in the away end 20 minutes after the final whistle, scarves twirling, flags draped, a wall of consolatory red and white.
Atlético may have just failed to reach the knockout stages for the first time in seven seasons after this 1-1 draw. They may have looked blunt, a powerhouse whose resources have been stretched, with a team who have aged together. But this is a club built on that same collective will and heart that made the creaky, grubby Vicente Calderón such an uplifting place to visit. You can’t kill the spirit and there was a warmth to the end notes here on a night that left Diego Simeone taciturn and glowering – or rather, even more taciturn and glowering – as he picked over his team’s exit.
And really, there were no winners. Antonio Conte was bullish afterwards but Chelsea will be hugely disappointed at their inability to finish top of Group C having started so brightly with a win in Madrid. They are now likely to play one of Barcelona, PSG, Besiktas or RB Leipzig in the last 16, not a difficult choice given half a chance to warm the Uefa balls.
There are reasons to be hopeful whoever Chelsea end up playing. Eden Hazard was the best player on the pitch. Even at this level of competition he will trouble any opponent, such is the extreme quality of his dribbling, his acceleration on the half-turn, and that astonishing lateral spring, the ability to move with more shark-like purpose than any other player on the park.
He produced the best moment of the match, haring forward from just past the centre circle, leaving four defenders in his wake, two literally on their backsides. He created the equaliser shortly afterwards, sprinting from the same inside-left position, legs pounding the turf with a controlled fury, and seeing his low cross put through his own goal by Stefan Savic.
If Chelsea can proceed as a dark horse, a team no one will really fancy playing, it is Atlético who were the real story, finalists in two of the last four seasons, and a club flush with ambition and new money, but eliminated from the top table without much of a whimper.
It isn’t hard to diagnose the problems on the pitch. At half time it was hard to fight the suggestion both teams were missing Diego Costa, that both could have done with a little of the old wild man on the pitch, jabbing Gary Cahill in the kidneys at one end, foraging more forcefully than the stealthy Alvaro Morata at the other, perhaps even managing to go head to head with himself at some stage in a furious finger-jabbing Diego‑on-Diego bust-up. Instead Fernando Torres played up front again for Atlético, a slimmed down Torres, game and slick in his movements even aged 33. Torres had a hand in Atlético’s goal as they began to chug up through the gears early in the second half. The big screen at Stamford Bridge had just broadcast the news of Roma taking the lead at home to Qarabag. Moments later Atlético scored, Saúl heading in from Torres’ flick after a corner, helped by some anaemic Chelsea defending.
Atlético were always riding two horses with the same backside, charged not just with beating Chelsea but with hoping Qarabag , thrashed 6-0 on this ground, could go to Rome and win. Saúl celebrated wildly with the crowd, showing a great deal more faith in the Azerbaijan champions’ ability to pull one back in Rome than most neutral observers.
The key was probably in the detail This was Atlético’s sixth goal in six games in this group. With Antoine Griezmann quiet, they looked like a team set up to strangle their opponents then kill them with a little razor edge on the break, but lacking the sharpness to make those attacking details count. Here Simeone lamented the missed chances against Qarabag, 10 of them in a 1-1 draw.
It is no secret Atlético have suffered though the cost of building the Wanda Metropolitano stadium and a transfer ban imposed at the moment this group of players started to fray at the edges. Atlético are still surging on in La Liga, only six points behind Barcelona, and the wheel will turn again. The new stadium, the powerful backers, Simeone’s talent: there is an inevitability about this combination of elements. But lost years can take their toll, the need to grow constantly, to reboot and refresh a squad should not be underestimated.
For all their fine passing and movement there was an element of the trapped wasp under a glass about them here. Simeone was up patrolling his stretch of white line from the start, whirling and fretting and barking helplessly in his shiny black coat and skinny suit, like an ageing mafia sicario desperately hailing a cab in the rain. A drop down into the Europa League will provide a formidable heavyweight presence for Uefa’s second-string Thursday night crowd, not to mention time for Simeone to make sure his team are back in this competition next year, refreshed and ready to start a new cycle in the club’s history.
For Chelsea the Champions League’s return in February will be a fascinating prospect. Much of the club’s success, its sense of itself, is built around progress in this competition, but it has been a decelerating ride. Even with Atlético safely put away, the last top European team Chelsea beat at the Bridge was Paris Saint-Germain three and a half years ago, a match José Mourinho memorably turned on its head by loading the front of his team with big men and hoofing it long to Demba Ba. The real tests await this team, although as Conte pointed out, it is hard to imagine too many of Europe’s heavyweights will fancy crossing their path.