After their last four away games against Real Madrid, Villareal, Leganes and Girona ended in a draw, Atletico Madrid will seek an away victory against Real Valladolid on Saturday.
The two teams have faced each other four times in the past and Los Rojiblancos triumphed on each occasion, accumulating four straight wins against their upcoming opponents.
Valladolid are part of a list, consisting of another 22 teams – including Sant Andreu, Cordoba, Hannover, Guijuelo, Lokomotiv, Besiktas, Milan, Copenhagen, Lazio, Porto, Monaco, Reus, Rostov, Austria Wien, Malmo, Lleida, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Jaen, Galatasaray, Marseille and Huesca – against which Diego Simeone’s side have managed to prevail.
In fact, La Pucela’s current coach Sergio Gonzalez has only achieved a draw in three meetings against Atleti, while on the bench of Espanyol, as his former team couldn’t even score against Cholo’s side.
Adding up the teams that have never won against Simeone, the list figure rises to 42, with Real Betis and Getafe unable to beat their rivals 14 times each.
Atletico Madrid remain three points behind LaLiga Santander leaders Barcelona and seek their first league away victory since September, while Valladolid aim to exorcise the ghosts of the past.
The hosts come into the match at the bottom of the table but a win here could see them move up to 18th and closer to safety.
Atletico Madrid, meanwhile, have clawed their way back into the title race over the past couple of weeks. They are now in third, just five points behind Barcelona.
The worrying thing for Real Valladolid is that they can’t put their poor start to the season down to injuries and they are only missing one first-team player, Seilim Amallah, on Saturday. Atletico are expected to be without three players for this one with Thomas Lemar, Robin Le Normand and Nahuel Molina all injured.
Real Vallodolid: Hein – Perez, Bah, Sanchez, Ozkacar, Rosa – Moro, Perez, Martin, Tuhami – Syllla.
Atletico Madrid: Oblak – Llorente, Gimenez, Lenglet, Galan – Simeone, Barrios, Koke, Gallagher – Griezmann, Alvarez.
