{"id":25841,"date":"2025-08-18T05:09:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T09:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/atleti-falls-to-espanyol-despite-alvarezs-goal-simeone-concerned\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T05:09:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T09:09:58","slug":"atleti-falls-to-espanyol-despite-alvarezs-goal-simeone-concerned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/atleti-falls-to-espanyol-despite-alvarezs-goal-simeone-concerned\/","title":{"rendered":"Atleti Falls to Espanyol Despite \u00c1lvarez’s Goal: Simeone Concerned"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid Starts La Liga with Defeat against Espanyol<\/h2>\n\nAtl\u00e9tico de Madrid, coached by Diego Simeone, suffered a painful 2-1 defeat against Espanyol in their first La Liga match. Despite an impressive free-kick goal by Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez, the team couldn’t hold the lead and fell to an opponent that knew how to take advantage of the opportunities.\n\nThe match, played at the RCDE Stadium, saw Atl\u00e9tico take the lead in the 37th minute thanks to \u00c1lvarez’s great goal. However, late goals from Miguel Rubio and Pere Milla gave the victory to Espanyol, who had the support of former NFL player J.J. Watt as a new shareholder.\n\nSimeone lined up five of Atl\u00e9tico’s new signings from the start, including American midfielder Johnny Cardoso, who was substituted at halftime.\n\n\n
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\u201cThey took advantage of the situations they had. The set piece (for Rubio’s goal) got them into the game. We had the game well controlled. And then, with the second goal, that hurt us,\u201d Simeone stated.<\/p>\n\nDiego Simeone<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\nAtl\u00e9tico has made a significant investment this summer, incorporating seven new players with the aim of competing with Barcelona and Real Madrid, after a season without titles.\n\n\n

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“It’s part of the journey. This result hurts us, but it can also make us improve and grow. I will focus on the good things the team did and we will try to reduce the deficiencies we saw,” added Simeone.<\/p>\n\nDiego Simeone<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\nAtl\u00e9tico players react after losing their opening La Liga match against Espanyol on Sunday.<\/em>\n\nThe team captain, Koke, came on in the second half along with Pablo Barrios, replacing Cardoso and Conor Gallagher.\n\n\n
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“Football is about being effective in both areas, and we weren’t. We know what this level demands. We will have to be effective if we want to achieve something in this league,” commented Koke.<\/p>\n\nKoke<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\nFormer NFL player J.J. Watt is involved with Velocity Sports Limited, the owners of Burnley Football Club, who acquired Espanyol this summer.\n\nWatt shared a video on social media, interacting with Espanyol fans before the match.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid Starts La Liga with Defeat against Espanyol Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid, coached by Diego Simeone, suffered a painful 2-1 defeat against Espanyol in their first La Liga match. Despite an impressive free-kick goal by Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez, the team couldn’t hold the lead and fell to an opponent that knew how to take advantage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2704,2309,158,7418],"class_list":{"0":"post-25841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-soccer","7":"tag-atletico-madrid","8":"tag-espanyol","9":"tag-laliga","10":"tag-simeone"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}