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ANFIELD, LIVERPOOL – It's always a thrill for the 22 child mascots who get to accompany a player onto the field for Champions League matches, taking their heroes by the hand as they leave the tunnel and line up for the tournament anthem.
Still, it was perhaps slightly unfortunate for Julian Alvarez that he had a particularly keen young companion on his return to the Atletico Madrid starting line-up to face Liverpool. After his summer of acrimony and a failure to secure his desired move to Barcelona, it almost looked as if the Argentina forward was being dragged unwillingly onto the field.
Bridges have been burned between Alvarez and the Atletico faithful and the ashes has been kicked around for good measure. His two substitute appearances in La Liga have been fraught occasions and Atleti's two wins this season have come in the games where the 26-year-old has not featured.
It felt like a shrewd move from Simeone to bring his star forward back into the first XI away from a baying Metropolitano crowd. On Merseyside, Atletico only had a few hundred travelling supporters tucked away in the bottom left corner of the Anfield Road End. When the team emerged for the pre-match warm-ups, Alvarez was whistled briefly before Atleti's fans got on with the business of throatily backing their team.
Liverpool vs. Atletico Madrid final score
All the focus on Alvarez at kickoff took the attention away from the tactical masterstroke Simeone had slipped in. The visitors were not laid out in their customary two banks of four away from home in Europe. Simeone selected a robust, athletic back three of Marc Pubil, Cristian Romero and David Hancko. In front of them, Pablo Barrios and the evergreen Koke patrolled the centre of the pitch. Elsewhere, Liverpool found runners popping up everywhere and, frequently, during the first quarter of the contest, Andoni Iraola's side were chaotically overwhelmed.
Lee Kang-in, nominally up front with Alvarez, frequently switched positions with the coach's son Giuliano Simeone, who was deployed at left wing-back. Alex Baena manned that flank during Sprein World Cup win, but he enjoyed free rein at Anfield, kitting together this surprisingly effervescent Atletico setup.
Alvarez also loves to drop deep and had attacking options darting ahead of him when he did. In the 17th minute, the man in question was Marcos Llorente – haring forward from right wing-back to continue his faintly hilarious record of scoring on this ground. Llorente netted twice when Atleti completed one of their great Simeone-era heists in March 2020 and named his dog Anfield as a result. He also netted twice here in a breathless 3-2 Liverpool win last season. He has now scored five of his 10 Champions League goals at the stadium that bears the same name as his pet. It really is incredible commitment to the bit.
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) September 9, 2026In the 27th minute, Alvarez unleashed a trademark strike from 25 yards and forced Alisson into a brilliant save at full stretch. If that had gone in, the Simeone masterplan would have been inarguable, as he contorted in his typical fashion on the touchline – up and down on his haunches, wearing creases back into the black suit that can never be completely ironed out. His team and their reintegrated star were outplaying a bedraggled Liverpool, who have looked uncertain in their three competitive games under Andoni Iraola. Simeone will bring up 15 years at Atletico this December. At 2-0, the master-apprentice path of the match would have been set.
Watching the first half hour, as the men in black kits with fluorescent trim hammered around the turf in unison, you wondered why Alvarez or anyone else would ever want out of this. The remaining hour gave enough of an answer.
Despite their changed tactical layout, Atleti started to drop off, gradually edging deeper. What we have we hold. Bradley Barcola started to have fun on his full Liverpool debut, Jan Oblak made a brilliant save to deny Florian Wirtz.
The Slovenian goalkeeper also impressed as he denied Barcola, but Liverpool kept that alive. Ronald Araujo, forward from right-back, got into the freewheeling spirit of things with a backheel assist for Dominik Szoboszlai to arrow an equaliser into the corner.
Szoboszlai was part of a Liverpool midfield badly overrun during the opening stages, but he turned the tide and his partner in Iraola's spluttering engine room finished the job.
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) September 9, 2026Alexis Mac Allister is another Argentina international with question marks over his future, but of a different kind. At Tuesday's pre-match news conference, he broke ranks and declared himself "sad" that Liverpool had not offered him a new deal last season. Mac Allister had anything but a banner 2025-26, but he is into the final two years of his contract on Merseyside, and this is when talks are generally expected to be in progress.
The ball broke to Mac Allister on the edge of the Atletico box early in the second half and he channelled all of that frustration into a blistering left-footed dive that left Oblak grasping at air. The stage had felt set for Alvarez, after his anguish at Atletico insisting he honor his contract. But the decisive word fell to his Albiceleste colleague, who's upset Liverpool won't give him a new one.
As he ran away to a jubilant Kop beating his chest, Mac Allister looked like a man unburdened. Atletico – for all their iterations under Simeone, every band of Rojiblancos brothers – always look slightly held back by the weight of the toil that takes them so far.
The push for an equaliser never gathered steam, a win there for the taking having escaped their grasp. Afterwards, Simeone spoke of his team being in a building phase and cited the recent pattern of fading performances after halftime as a by-product of a new team trying to increase fitness and familiarity on the job.
"Julian was fantastic," Simeone said. "He wanted the ball all the time, from minute one to minute 90 and that makes me very happy. That's the kind of game and kind of performance I want to see from him."
The question that lingered at full-time, as Alvarez stood dejected with his hands on his hips, was how many more of these nights he wants to see in Atletico colours, after the rush of possibility gave way to disappointment.
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