Atletico Madrid – Best players, predicted XI + more

It’s time for another FIFA Club World Cup Fantasy 2025 team preview, this time focusing on Atletico Madrid.

Diego Simeone’s side made it to the States as ‘the sixth-best eligible ranked team in the UEFA rankings’. In other words, their performances in Europe over the last four seasons.

Here we take a look at the pick of their Fantasy assets, as well as an early predicted XI, their top goalscorers, leading assist-makers, set-piece takers and more.

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ATLETICO MADRID: OVERVIEW

Atlético Madrid were comfortably third in this year’s two-horse race for the La Liga title. 

They lost the same number of games and actually conceded fewer league goals (30) than rivals Barcelona (39) and Real Madrid (38).

A total of 17 clean sheets was also a league best. So too was their expected goals conceded (xGC) tally of 33.4.

We’ve become accustomed to defensive competence under long-serving boss Diego Simeone, of course.

But they were hindered by a comparative lack of goals at the other end (68, which was 34 short of Real). Indeed, a total of 463 shots was only seventh-best in the division.

There were too many draws, as well: 10, four more than Real and six more than Barca.

Unlike group opponents PSG, who could win their fourth title of the season by lifting the Club World Cup, this is Atléti’s only chance at glory in 2024/25.

They were knocked out of the Copa del Rey by Barca in the semi-finals, and put out – controversially – at the Champions League round of 16 stage by Real on penalties.

Group fixtures

Bookies predictions

League Top Scorers

• Alexander Sorloth ($7.5m, FWD) – 20
• Julian Alvarez ($9.0m, FWD) – 17
• Antoine Griezmann ($8.5m, FWD) – 8

League Top Assist-Makers

• Antoine Griezmann ($8.5m, FWD) – 7
• Guiliano Simeone ($7.1m, FWD) – 6
• Rodrigo De Paul ($6.3m, MID) – 5

Set-piece takers

Penalties

• Julian Alvarez ($9.0m, FWD)
• Antoine Griezmann ($8.5m, FWD)
• Alexander Sorloth ($7.5m, FWD)

This season, Griezmann started off as Atléti’s first-choice penalty-taker, scoring one from the spot in the league at the end of November.

But after the Frenchman missed his next effort, hitting wide when he could have drawn his side level in a match they ultimately lost to Leganés, Alvarez appeared to assume spot-kick duties, taking and scoring four between February and April.

The only penalty in that time not taken by the Argentine was kicked and scored by Sørloth, who had replaced Alvarez some 20 minutes earlier in the match (Griezmann had also been withdrawn by that point).

Corners + Indirect Free-Kicks

• Antoine Griezmann ($8.5m, FWD)
• Julian Alvarez ($9.0m, FWD)
• Rodrigo Riquelme ($5.7m, MID)

Griezmann (81) and Alvarez (50) have taken the bulk of Atletico’s corners in La Liga this season.

No one else has taken more than 13, with the lesser-used Rodrigo Riquelme on that mark.

Best Fantasy assets

JULIAN ALVAREZ ($9.0m) – FWD

No outfielder is quite guaranteed an unbroken run of starts in Simeone’s starting XI. The head coach is a bit of a tinkerer, with no one outside of goalkeeper Jan Oblak ($5.5m) getting more than 30 La Liga starts this season.

Alvarez has been afforded the most game-time out of them all, however. Four of his seven league benchings can also be explained by late returns from international duty with Argentina.

He also started all 10 of Atletico’s UEFA Champions League ties, one of only two outfielders – the other being midfielder Rodrigo De Paul ($6.3m) – to do so.

The former Manchester City man enjoyed a strong first season in the Spanish capital.

The Argentine forward bagged 29 goals in total, the most of any player in his new side in all competitions, with 17 of them in La Liga and seven more from his 10 Champions League outings.

Likelier to bag a goal than Antonie Griezmann ($8.5m), Alvarez had almost 50% more shots than the Frenchman (74 v 50) in the league from similar minutes.

A third of Alvarez’s efforts did come from outside the box, it has to be said, and he only scored from one of them.

Still, penalty and set-piece-taking duties elevates his appeal further.

ANTOINE GRIEZMANN ($8.5M) – FWD/ALEXANDER SORLOTH ($7.5M) – FWD

We’ve taken a bit of an unusual step of grouping these two strikers together as whoever gets the nod in Matchdays 2 and 3, and it might be one each, will be more appealing than the striker who starts alongside Alvarez in Matchday 1 against the reigning European champions.

There are reservations about both attackers. Griezmann, at 34, is a waning force. There’s also a nagging feeling that Sorloth, for all his eye-popping goal exploits in 2024/25, is better used as an impact substitute.

Griezmann appeared in all 38 of Atléti’s league games in 2024/25, scoring a modest eight goals.

He did at least add six more in 10 Champions League outings, and was Atletico’s leading assist-maker.

Towards the end of the season, the France international found himself warming the bench: he was a substitute in five of the last seven league matches.

That was in order to give Sorloth more of a first-team opportunity. The former Crystal Palace featured mostly as a supersub last season, coming off the bench in 20 of his 35 La Liga appearances.

Yet he still managed to score 20 league goals, with four coming during one match in early May. A hat-trick, as a substitute, followed in the final game of the season.

Critics accuse Sorloth of ‘stat padding’ (he didn’t score a single Champions League goal) – but a flat-track bully will be exactly what Fantasy managers desire against Seattle Sounders especially.

JAN OBLAK ($5.5m) – GK

It would seem silly not to advocate for a defender from a team that kept 17 clean sheets in 38 league games. Their entire ethos under Simeone is around being hard to beat.

But the picture is a little uncertain at the back for Atléti.

There’s the Nahuel Molina ($5.2m)-Marcos Llorente ($6.4m, listed as a midfielder) toss-up at right-back. Javi Galán ($5.2m) should see the most game-time on the other flank but Reinildo ($4.9m) may challenge.

Robin Le Normand ($5.2m) is probably the best bet for minutes at centre-half, with loanee Clément Lenglet ($5.2m) and José María Giménez ($5.2m) trading starts in the run-in.

So, to avoid any risk, and with no outfield defenders standing out from the pack as they do with PSG, we’ve instead opted for the safe hands of goalkeeper Jan Oblak ($5.5m).

La Liga’s top ‘keeper for clean sheets (15), he also won the ‘Zamora Trophy’ for the lowest goals-conceded-to-games ratio (0.83).

A save percentage of 78.1% was also third-best in the Spanish top flight.

EARLY PREDICTED xi