Atleti to start 2013/14 pre-season this Friday

Slowly the long summer break nears its end

Posted by on July 3rd, 2013 in General -

Mario Suarez in training session

Return to training in Majadahonda (colchonero.com)

After 34 days of summer break for the players and coaching staff, Atlético will finally begin the 2013/14 season on Friday.

Diego Pablo Simeone, who will return from his holiday in Argentina today, will meet up with his players for the start of the pre-season at the Cuidad Deportiva in the Madrilenian suburb of Majadahonda on Friday to begin preparations for the upcoming season.

After undergoing physical tests on Friday, the squad will leave for their annual training camp in Los Ángeles de San Rafael on Monday. Their first stage of preparation will take two weeks, and will end with a friendly against Numancia on Sunday, July 21st at 7 pm in Burgo de Osma.

On Friday 25th the club will embark on another tour of South America, where they will take part in the “Copa Euroamericana”, a tournament of 11 teams from nine different nations.

Cholo’s men will start the tournament with a match against Estudiantes de La Plata in Buenos Aires on July 27th.

Four days later, Atleti will play against the Peruvian side of Sporting de Cristal in the capital of Lima.

The last match in the tournament will take place in Uruguay, where the Rojiblancos will face Nacional Montevideo on August 4th.

Once back in Spain, the Colchoneros will play their last friendly of the off-season on the Canary Island of Gran Ganaria against UD Las Palmas on August 10th.

After this, Simeone and his squad will have one more week of preparation time before the onset of La Liga on the third weekend of August. The schedule will be published next Tuesday.

Atlético will also face FC Barcelona their debut week for the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup on August 21st, with the return leg to be played on the 28th in Barcelona.

With another title at stake and three competitions to contend, Simeone, frustrated with the lack of signings so far, will be hoping to bolster his squad sooner rather than later, to make the most of the pre-season.


  • Ahmad Hossainy

    Can’t wait to see Atleti playing against Messi-Neymar Barca

    The fact that the first official game for this lethal duo is against us is interesting, although there is a big chance that we will be beaten very badly but just like Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) used to say in “The Rock” Movie :
    “I love pressure” !

  • kris

    Ahmad, why do you believe we will be beaten badly? There’s no chance we will be beaten badly again after that 4-1 defeat AS LONG as Simeone is the coach. But there’s a huge chance of us upsetting Barcelona like we upset Real. Barcelona’s defense is horrendous AND they have Valdes. Simeone has it all figured and I don’t understand why you are scared of that effing mosquito, Neymar. In Simeone, we trust. Aupa Atleti!!

  • EC

    Neymar was very impressive at the confederations cup and I expect him to be good for Barca. There is always the chance we will get beaten badly by Barca IMO. If they produce there best they can hammer anyone. Simione has done a good job though and we are an organised team that has a chance of upsetting Barca as kris said. We need better attacking players though. Barca will probs bring in a good centre back aswell as puyol returning

  • piserakos

    well i don’t think neymer will be good for us it would not be easy for him to be good from the first game. also barca’s defence sack and they don’t have a goalkeeper, valdes left for monaco. so why not to win them?? of course we need some new players

  • Ahmad Hossainy

    I hope you’re right Kris, but the facts say that our last 5 games at Camp Nou were :
    6-1 , 5-2 , 3-0 , 5-0 & 4-1 that’s 23-4 !!

    also the numbers say that the club concede the biggest numbers of goals from Messi is Atletico Madrid !

    with our strong defense I don’t think we will lose 6 or 5 again, but I can’t say the same thing about 3

  • Ahmad Hossainy

    after Falcao has gone, Tiago is likely leaving also, now we don’t have any vice captain .. who do you think should be our new vice captain ?!

    I say Godin or Mario

  • kris

    Numbers had also said that we hadn’t beaten Real for 14 years.Numbers had also said that Real were unbeaten at the Bernebeau for how many,, whole season? But, those numbers mean nothing when it comes to Atletico, anymore. TEN whole years, never witnessed Atletico beating Real and it was a moment to cry for when we beat them AT THEIR HOME to win LA DECIMA of Copa del Rey. Bad days are the past for us now, good days are coming. I am gonna be really optimistic in this one, I am saying we are adding another trophy to our Trophy Cabinet. Super Cup is all our’s to win.

    As for the captaincy, hell, why not make Arda our vice captain and Diego our first captain if he comes. Koke/Oliver could be third captain. Remember Nino?

  • starvs

    Come on, this team is playing in champions league, maybe even in the first fucking pot (god willing Arsenal lose), need to make some fucking moves.

  • Alex21

    Exactly. Players need to come in and out…fast. No more tic toc tic toc. Times running out.

  • kris

    Woww,, the preseason starts tomorrow,, and not a single Summer signing. What is this? How is this team going to improve? Not cool, Gil. Not cool.

    Monaco have made a surprising 25 million bid for Filipe Luis. ahha, Filipe Luis ain’t going nowhere,, that I’m confident of. He’s finally received Brazil call-up and if he goes to Monaco, he won’t get that.

  • Alex21

    Jese Rodriguez wants out of Real. I’d gladly take this kid. Probably wouldn’t cost too much and the sky’s the limit for him. We just need people in!!

  • Will

    I would sign Jese too. He’s just a little younger than Courtois now and the older than Courtois when he arrived. We could get some surprise from him.

    Filipe has rare defending skills, I really like him and I’m very proud to have a Atlético player playing with my national team. But 25 million is a lot of money. I prefer not to guess.. let’s just wait for the best.

    But for sure our board is having an awkward performance on this transfer window. Really shame.

  • super3athens

    if we can bring jese that would be awsome, to pick your rival’s best talent is something nice and we are not used to do this.. but i don’t think he will join us he plays at a rival… let’s wish is and try for this… 25mil for filipe isn’t a bad amount in my opinion cause we need cash but i would try to take more money(about 30mil) we have allready a decend left back insua, and we can buy siqueira for about 5mil so we are going to have +25 millions to buy other players…

  • Kulan

    What do you guys think of Fred? He wouldn’t be very expensive and I believe he is just the kind of attacker that we are lacking since El Tigre left us.

  • SoLobo

    Fred would be quite an option, as long as his price is good. But am I the only one who thinks that Diego Costa, Adrian and Baptistao are enough? Maybe we don’t have to pay 90% of our budget just to buy another star. We ‘ve got strikers decent enough.

  • kris

    Come on, mate. We need somebody of Champions League quality. Remember we want to get at least to the semi finals so that we can get some money to pay our debts.

  • SoLobo

    I agree, but we already have champions league material – players. We just need more depth. And if we have 30m in our pockets to spend, I don’t want 20-25 of them to go to a single striker. We could buy for example a GK and a DM that are stars.
    I mean… if we buy someone like Falcao, Adrian is never gonna play again and Baptistao will be sent on loan. But if we buy a DM, he would play along Gabi, or even substitute him, when we need to attack. Gabi and Mario are great players, but can they carry the team to the Champions League semi-finals? I don’t think so…
    Is a star striker really our priority?
    (We also need a decent 3rd and 4th central defender.)
    (And what if Courtois gets injured? Asenjo and Joel are not going to stay.)

  • kris

    Gabi is really slow and Mario Suarez is OK. I would much rather play Saul but Gabi has experience and that’s what it matters. Doesn’t seem like we’ll be buying Toulalan. As for a striker, I would have Diego Costa do it all. Make him the lone striker,play Ljajic behind him, buy Papu Gomez. CAM,Diego or Oliver. Papu Gomez. So, now that I look at it, I don’t really think we need a 20 million striker. What we need is a plan to work, which obviously Simeone has, after they buy Diego, but if we can’t buy a good CAM or Diego then it may be a big loss, but I am still not worried since we got Oliver. I trust this kid. Seriously. Such a fantastic player.

  • EC

    We really need a striker I don’t think any of our current strikers are anywhere near Falcaos standard tbh. At the end of last season costa was the best he had been for us and I hope he is the same again next season although I don’t expect it, Adrian was poor last season and also cannot be relied upon and iam not sure about baptistao all I know is be is very young and inexperienced. I don’t believe our strikers are anywhere near good enough to really trouble top teams tbh. Falcao got 34 in 40 last season which wasn’t even his best. Costa got 20 in 44 which is by far his best return for us and Adrian got 4 in 44. We can’t just expect these strikers to fill that gaping hole left by IMO the best striker in the world. I hope iam wrong though. A good striker is the most important thing in football

  • kris

    I completely agree with you, though, EC. But I think Diego Costa is a real fighter and has been motivated a lot from last season. He was a beast at providing and scoring. I expect him to score 40+ goals next season, I know now, i am overrating him much, but by the looks of it, he seems like the player that can do that.

  • EC

    I agree with your point on Costa he is a player i rate highly he can create and score and he is big strong, fast and has the right attitude but i would love to see a striker like negredo/soldado/gomez up front with Costa playing just behin and Turan on the left with Diego Ribas on the right Which i think definetly would be possible even with €30 mil.
    As i said i like Costa but i will also add i will eat my shoes if he scores 40+ next season :P. Imo 20 would be a very good return

  • kris

    ahha… for me a striker of his abilities, 20 is too low, if he starts and plays full 90 minutes. I think he will be playing as a lone striker, so scoring will be his main priority.

  • EC

    Maybe but I can’t remember the last time a la liga striker scored 40+ goals. Except messi/Ronaldo. Not Torres,Forlan,Aguero,benzema,Higuain,soldado,negredo,villa, rossi or Falcao have managed that

  • kris

    I know, ahha, my optimism, though. I won’t give up on my faith. Diego Costa is the man for me. And, I am not saying just in La Liga, though. I am saying overall games. He will probably score 30+ in Liga, though.

  • starvs

    Need another proven or young and semi proven striker, champions league is no joke, need to reinforce.

  • EC

    @Kris yeah none of the players I mentioned even managed to score 40 goals in all competitions I don’t think. Again I really hope your. Right but I think there is no chance of that happening. I wish I has your optimism. Another thing is though our style of play is an organised and fairly defensive approach so we need someone is going to finish off the few chances we get

  • If the RM position is covered by a versatile and creative player, Costa can play as the striker.
    Adrian, Diego, Oliver, Baptistao as the options next or behind him and I wouldn’t be too scared of not having players capable of scoring a goal or two.

  • By that, I mean having Koke in central midfield to increase the pace of play from midfield to attack and keeping control.
    His positioning is amazing.
    With a player stronger at the defensive part of play next to him and Diego or Oliver along them, the midfield will surely provide more terrific passes to the more forward players, Arda, Costa and the RM