For eighty minutes at the Reale Arena, Atlético Madrid looked like the team that had just been taken apart by Athletic Bilbao and outclassed by Liverpool in midweek: cautious, disjointed, no focal point up front. Then the whole night flipped in about ten minutes. A penalty from Alejandro Grimaldo, a maiden goal for new forward Jonathan David, and a breakaway finish from Giuliano Simeone turned a nervy stalemate into a 3-0 laugher. Don't let the scoreline fool you into thinking Atlético dominated. They were sharper and unlucky not to be ahead sooner, sure, but this was a team that needed a controversial handball call to unlock a game it had spent most of the night failing to break down.
That's not nothing. The shot numbers back up the idea that Atlético were the better side even before it showed on the scoreboard: more of their attempts came from inside the box, and their expected-goals tally dwarfed Real Sociedad's. The hosts had their moments, forcing a couple of saves out of Jan Oblak in the first half, but they never looked like scoring three. There's a real argument Atlético were unlucky to still be at 0-0 as the clock ticked into the final ten minutes, not fortunate to escape with the win.
Still, the easy read misses something. Atlético made this trip without Julián Álvarez, ruled out for fitness reasons, and without Alexander Sørloth, so Diego Simeone sent his team to Anoeta with no recognized central striker. For most of the match, that showed. Real Sociedad were content to sit in and dare Atlético to find someone to finish. That's why Jonathan David's goal matters more than a routine second in a 3-0 win: he was the direct replacement for that missing presence, and he delivered a composed finish in the biggest moment of the game so far for his new club. If Simeone is going to lean on David as the long-term answer to Álvarez's and Sørloth's absences, this is the kind of night that should give him real confidence, not just relief.
The penalty itself, a rebound striking Job Ochieng's hand inside the area in the closing stages, is the sort of call that'll get replayed and argued about far more in San Sebastián than in Madrid. Atlético shouldn't apologize for it. Teams that keep pressing into stoppage time get the rub of the green sometimes, and by that point Atlético had created enough good chances that it doesn't feel like theft. But it's also why this result reads as more dramatic than the performance actually was.
Atlético arrived off back-to-back defeats and needed exactly this kind of response. They got it, emphatically, in the scoreline if not in the run of play. Real Sociedad, meanwhile, still have no answers against this opponent in league play. Their winless run against Atlético has become painful for their fans. In the table, Atlético sit level on points with a couple of other clubs just behind the early pace-setters, a fine platform this early in the season but nothing to celebrate.
Honestly, this was a result that flattered the performance. Atlético looked like a team still searching for its attacking identity without two senior forwards, saved by a new number nine's composure and a late sprint from a substitute. That's a good problem to have compared to losing again. It isn't, yet, proof that whatever went wrong against Athletic Bilbao and Liverpool has been fixed.
