Mendes, who originally wanted to rely on Diego Costa's excellent performance this season to operate it to other big clubs, so as to seek a large transfer commission, did not expect that the Spanish striker would unexpectedly suffer an injury in the game at the most critical moment.

What was even more unexpected was that during the period when Diego Costa was out due to injury, Atletico Madrid not only suffered a decline in results, but also won the league by a large score one after another. At the same time, Feng Quan, who replaced the Spanish international as the starting forward center, scored 6 goals in three games and jumped to the top of the La Liga scorer list in one fell swoop.

Not only that, but Atletico Madrid failed to make the 18-man squad for Valencia, even though Diego Costa had fully recovered from his injury, in order to dominate the contract renewal negotiations with Mendes.

So, on the night when Atletico Madrid won Valencia by 3 goals, Diego Costa, who had missed 4 games in a row, finally took the initiative to ask the club to renew his contract because he couldn't resist the pain of not being able to play.

Mendes, who is hell-bent on high transfer commissions, does not want Diego Costa to renew his contract with Atletico Madrid. However, in the face of the "cruel" reality that the team is still soaring without Diego Costa, he has no choice but to "bow down" to Atletico Madrid.

Of course, Mendes, who has made a number of blockbuster deals in recent years, did not make a significant compromise to Atletico Madrid because he offered to renew his contract, but used his prestige in world football to help Diego Costa win the second highest salary in the team (135,000 euros a week) after Feng Quan.

In addition, in order to smoothly transfer Diego Costa to other big clubs next summer, Mendes also added an additional clause to the contract that "in case of a foreign club's purchase, Diego Costa's liquidated damages will be reduced from the original 100 million euros to 60 million euros".

Although Atletico Madrid did not want to lose Diego Costa's "thigh", in order to avoid the embarrassing situation of other clubs using the "foreign club liquidated damages clause" of the Spanish international to buy him "at a low price" next summer, they still agreed to the amount of liquidated damages proposed by Mendes.

In fact, the reason why Atletico Madrid agreed to the amount of liquidated damages proposed by Mendes is because they also want to cooperate with this "predator" who controls the European transfer market; On the other hand, once French striker Griezmann, who joined the team in the winter transfer period, can smoothly integrate into Diego Simeone's tactical system, then he and Diego Costa will inevitably have one person on the bench.

Perhaps, for real tycoons with deep pockets like Barcelona and Real Madrid, it is natural to want the team to have more top strikers. But for Atletico Madrid, which has "relatively limited" funds and a little less prestige, having too many top players in the same position is not necessarily a good thing.

On the one hand, Atletico Madrid does not want to see players with high salaries sitting on the bench; On the other hand, once a top player sits on the bench for a long time, it is bound to be dissatisfied.

Therefore, in order to save on the high salaries of the players, but also to avoid discord in the dressing room, Atletico Madrid does not mind exchanging Diego Costa for a large transfer fund.

When Diego Costa's contract extension with Atletico Madrid was completed, Diego Simeone was included in the starting line-up against Barcelona. After all, in terms of the fulcrum role of the frontcourt, the Spanish striker's ability is still stronger than Feng Quan. What's more, the "King of Speed" can only give full play to his full power in the position of winger.

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Although Barcelona boasted in front of the media that they would easily beat Atletico Madrid, their starting line-up showed that they were serious enough about the league leaders.

In the previous 16 league games, Barcelona responded with a 4-3-3 pure attacking formation, no matter what opponent they faced. However, against Atletico Madrid, they fielded an uncommon 4-4-2 formation.

In order to effectively control the midfield and cut off the connection between Atletico Madrid's midfield and strikers as much as possible, Barcelona coach Gerardo Martino (Gerardo Martino) lined up three Spanish internationals in the midfield, namely Bosquets, Iniesta and Xavi, as well as the combination of Alex Song.

In terms of positioning, Bosquets, who plays the "metronome", still stands in front of the back line, while Xavi and Iniesta continue to be at the front of the midfield to deliver cannonballs to the South American duo in the front line. And Alex Song, who is mainly responsible for cutting off Feng Quan's receiving line, randomly changed his position according to Feng Quan's actual position in the game.

With the midfield occupying four starting spots, only Messi and Neymar remain in the attack. At the back, Jordi Alba, Pique, Mascherano and Danny Alves are still the back four, as well as goalkeeper Valdés.

Although the game was played at the Wonderland Metropolitano Stadium, the home of Atletico Madrid, after the start of the game, the away Barcelona team took the lead in taking the initiative on the field by virtue of the advantage of passing and control technology.

Although judging by the results of the first 16 rounds of the league, Atletico Madrid's defensive ability is the best in the entire La Liga league. But in fact, if you simply compare the individual ability of the defenders, they are not necessarily better than the Barcelona defenders.

Moreover, the combination of Atletico Madrid's defenders is not as reasonable as that of Barcelona, after all, their two central defenders have excellent frontal defensive ability, but the turning speed and assistance ability are slightly weaker.

Atletico Madrid's backline can cope well against physical, impactful and even speedy forwards, but it struggles against the South American duo of Messi and Neymar, who have a low centre of gravity, speed and excellent technique at their feet.

Seven minutes into the first half, Andres Iniesta won the ball near the centre circle and first got rid of Alda Turan's save with a "croquette", and then evaded Coke's defense with two consecutive changes of direction.

Facing the menacing Raul Garcia, Iniesta did not continue to choose to break through with the ball, but passed the ball to Messi, who was cruising on the right side of the front.

After receiving the ball, Messi first made a gesture to cut inside the middle, and when Felipe Luis reflexively moved his body's center of gravity, Messi immediately slammed the ball with his left foot in the direction of the baseline and rushed towards the baseline direction.

Just as Felipe Luis forced to twist his center of gravity and make up for the defense in the direction of the baseline, Messi suddenly made a sharp stop, and then passed the ball to Iniesta at the top of the penalty area near the corner of the penalty area.

Iniesta, who was stuck to Gabi, did not choose to stop the ball, but directly used the outside of his right foot to flick the ball to Xavi behind his side.

Xavi picked up the ball and fired a long-range shot from distance, and when Raul Garcia tried to stretch his leg to block the line, he sent a ball into the left corner of the box.

Neymar, who was already lying in ambush there, took advantage of the situation and took the ball sideways with the outside of his right foot, and easily avoided the save of right wing-back Juanfran. Then, after making two more feints to sway the centre-back Godin to lose his center of gravity, he then curled a ball with the inside of his right foot.

Although Courtois, who is almost 2 metres tall, made a save the moment Neymar shot, the ball grazed the tip of his left finger and drilled into the top right corner of the goal......