Will Atletico be Barcelona’s Closest Challenger?

Much remains to be seen how this season’s transfer window will pan out with over five weeks still to go until the window slams shut, but with Real Madrid selling Cristiano Ronaldo and significantly weakening themselves, who else is left to challenge title defenders Barcelona next season?

Taking inspiration from the season just gone and looking at 10bet’s standard markets of previous seasons, with a 10bet code, then surely the prime candidates must be Atletico Madrid.

Ever since Diego Simeone took charge of Los Colchoneros in 2011, the supposedly smaller club from Spain’s capital has continuously harassed the so called ‘big two’ and even got the better of them during the 2013-14 La Liga season.

Despite ending last season 14-points behind Barcelona, they still got the better of neighbours Real Madrid in the league and whilst the both Real and Barce steal all the headlines, Atletico continue to remain more than just a passing threat.

Real Madrid have already proved their headline snatching status this summer with first the departure of head coach Zinedine Zidane, secondly, the furore surrounding the appointment of Spain manager Julen Lopetegui and his subsequent sacking as the nations head coach 48 hours before the World Cup kicked off, and then the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo.

This has allowed Atletico to go under the radar somewhat, but they have not been idle.

Highly rated and the much-courted winger Thomas Lemar has been snapped up from Monaco along with what could prove to be the capture of the season with the free acquisition of Gelson Martins from Sporting CP.

It has not ended there with Simone having made a total of five signings so far with a clear eye on the future with only one of the five over the age of 25 (31-year-old goalkeeper Antonio Adan from Real Betis).

Whilst others around them are imploding (Real), Atletico are quietly going about some smart business and unless Barcelona start taking them seriously, may find themselves getting a little too close for comfort to the Madrid side.

Especially with the uncertainty surrounding forward Ousmane Dembele removing an attacking option from Ernesto Valverde before a solid replacement is found.

Arsenal are the side rumoured to be closely monitoring the Dembele situation with new Gunners boss Unai Emery keen to make a signing to get the Arsenal faithful excited.

With just a matter of weeks to go until kick-off, you can bet Barcelona will be keeping a sharp eye on their opponent’s movements with one and a half eyes firmly attached to the city of Madrid.