Radamel Falcao Atlético Madrid profile, career and honours

Seventy goals in ninety-one matches

No player in the Atlético Madrid legends gallery has a rate like it. Radamel Falcao spent two seasons at the club and scored seventy times in ninety-one appearances, better than three goals every four matches, across a period that included a European trophy.

For comparison, Antoine Griezmann is the club’s all-time leading scorer with 212 in 501, and Diego Forlán, the man Falcao effectively replaced, managed 96 in 196. Falcao’s two years produced a strike rate neither approached.

Arriving as the club changed

He signed in 2011, the summer after Forlán’s departure and a few months before Diego Simeone took over in December of that year. The era page covers what a chaotic and productive stretch that was: a manager appointed with the side tenth, a European final five months later, a cup final against Real Madrid eighteen months after that.

Falcao was the attacking half of it.

Bucharest

The 2012 Europa League final against Athletic Bilbao finished 3–0, and the competition page records it as the second of the club’s three titles in nine seasons.

The opponent gave the night an accident of history: Atlético were founded in 1903 as a Madrid branch of Athletic Bilbao and have worn near-identical red-and-white stripes ever since, which is why both sides looked so alike. The shared origin explains how that came about.

A UEFA Super Cup followed later in 2012, the club’s second, and the second Falcao won inside a calendar year.

Two seasons, then gone

He left in 2013, a year before the league title and the Lisbon final. That is the shape of his Atlético career and the reason it is discussed differently from the other names in the gallery: he was not there for the club’s peak, he was the reason the club got close enough to have one.

The pattern by then was established. Fernando Torres sold in 2007, Sergio Agüero in 2011, Falcao in 2013, three consecutive first-choice strikers sold at the top of their value, each sale funding the squad that eventually won something.

The argument he settles

Supporters who rank Atlético strikers by what the club won while they were there put Falcao low. Those who rank by what a player actually did on the pitch put him first, and the numbers are not close.

Both positions can be held at once, which is why he remains one of the most-argued names in the legends gallery, and why the comparison tools get used on him more than most.

Reading the rate honestly

Seventy in ninety-one is the highest strike rate in the gallery, and two seasons is a small sample. Both statements are true and the second does not cancel the first.

What it does mean is that the comparison with the club’s all-time list is not like for like. Antoine Griezmann reached 212 goals over eleven seasons, absorbing the dips, injuries and tactical changes that a long tenure contains. Falcao’s ninety-one matches came at one point in one career, with no decline inside them.

The records page keeps totals rather than rates, which is why his name does not appear near the top of it. The comparison tool is the better place to set two careers of unequal length beside each other.

Two years in a four-year transformation

The Falcao spell sits precisely inside the club’s turn. He signed in 2011, months before Diego Simeone was appointed in December of that year with the side tenth in La Liga. He left in 2013, months before the league title and the Lisbon final.

Two seasons, one European trophy, one Super Cup and seventy goals, and then gone before the peak. The era page covers the four seasons that produced five trophies and a manager still in post more than a decade later.

How many goals did Falcao score for Atletico Madrid?

70 in 91 appearances across two seasons, 2011 to 2013, the highest strike rate of any player in the club's legends gallery.

What did Falcao win with Atletico?

The 2011–12 Europa League, beating Athletic Bilbao 3–0 in Bucharest, and the 2012 UEFA Super Cup.

Why did Falcao only stay two seasons?

He was sold in 2013, following the pattern of Torres in 2007 and Agüero in 2011: three consecutive first-choice strikers sold at the top of their value, each sale funding the rebuild.

Was Falcao part of the 2014 league title?

No. He left in 2013, one season before the championship and the Lisbon Champions League final.