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#3 What in the hell happened to Atletico's set-piece expertise?
Back in the good ol' days of Atletico Madrid upsetting the apple-cart and winning La Liga, they did so by sheer dint of collective brilliance - both off the ball and on set-pieces. Conceding freekicks in areas from which Gabi or Koke could swing the ball in was professional suicide, and giving away corners a strict no-no
se days, though, their corners are flat, their set-pieces hardly carry any threat and against Real Madrid they wasted so many of these opportunities that it bordered on the criminal. Despite still having considerable prowess in the air - Diego Godin says hello - El Cholo's men fail to make the most of one of their traditional strengths, and Simeone has his work cut out in trying to rectify this.
It would have been okay if their open-play football made up for it, but they have looked utterly bereft of cutting edge in the business end of the field - much of that due to the lacklustre run of form their star turn is undergoing:
