The Dutch Marc Overmars, now 51 years old and once a successful winger, was not the greatest of all attackers in football history with 1.72 meters. But he once said a nice sentence: “Big players”, said Overmars, “may not be a substitute.”
Only a few footballers are larger than the Norwegian Alexander Sörloth, the striker of Atlético Madrid distributes his fighting weight from 90 kilos to 1.94 meters. Even if you can hardly assume that he loves the role of the reservist, it can be said that he has arranged himself well with her. His personal statistics show this. There are currently no joker in the five most important leagues in Europe who has scored more often this season into the opposing goal than Sörloth. That will probably also make him one of the most important weapons atléticos in the Champions League round of life against Real Madrid on Wednesday evening (9 p.m.), in the Champions League round of life, to turn the 1-2 out of the first leg in Estadio Metropolitano.
:He leads the ball, as others can only go straight ahead
When Ousmane Dembélé has always been highly predisposed, but since Paris Saint-Germain put him at the center of his offensive, the Frenchman can hardly be stopped. The hopes for the second leg against Liverpool are resting on him.
Last weekend, the former Leipzig Sörloth met as a substitute, and he contributed to the penalty of Atlético’s leadership. That was not enough for a win, the championship candidate surprisingly lost 1-2 with the neighbors from the suburb. But Sörloth increased his personal yield in competitive games to 14 goals this season. He scored nine of them in games where he was not in the starting eleven. The – his nickname – “King of the North”, who was born a good 29 years ago in the winter darkness of Trondheim, has long since exceeded José Mari as the best joker in the history of Atlético. The Spaniard came to six goals as a bank player in 1997/98.
It is hard to doubt that Sörloth is used against Real – especially since he Madridistas incorporates some fear. The newspaper AS Even feels reminiscent of the fearsome “colossus” through the Norwegian, which Francisco de Goya painted at the beginning of the 19th century – “only in blonde”. In May 2024, Sörloth made a name for himself worldwide when he scored four goals in one game against Real Madrid – at that time for FC Villarreal. His current figures also make you take notice. In Atlético’s club-internal league-goal list, he shares first place with the Argentine world champion Julián Álvarez, both come to ten goals each. But: Sörloth has more effectiveness.
He often changed the clubs and the countries – as soon as he felt no trust somewhere
Álvarez has little more than 1000 (24 games) in 2700 minutes in 27 league games on the speedometer, Sörloth. In this respect, Álvarez “only” comes to a goal every 176 minutes, Sörloth every 100 minutes. Sörloth is also in an excellent mood. In the recent eight games, of which he only played one from the start, he scored four goals. However, Sörloth went away empty-handed in the aforementioned starting fine (1-0 against Bilbao, March 1), as well as in all seven Champions League games of the current season. For this reason alone, it is questionable whether he starts against Real.
It is certain that the attacker has changed. In the past few months, Sörloth has never gave a public grumbling, he accepted his role in the shadow of Álvarez and Antoine Griezmann – as he was also in Norway’s national team behind Erling Haaland (Manchester City) and leaves the number 9 without discussion. Four or five years ago, Sörloth would have had difficulty with the role of the porter, as he admitted to the US broadcaster ESPN a few months ago. In another interview, he said that if in doubt, he fled if he did not feel enough trust in a club. This is also shown by his unsteady professional vita.
The left foot began his career at the Heimatklubs Rosenborg Trondheim and Bodö/Glimt, via Groningen (Netherlands) and Midtjylland (Denmark) he ended up at Kaa Gent (Belgium), Crystal Palace (England) and Trabzonspor (Turkey) before him in 2020 RB Leipzig laid the Bundesliga. Sörloth was intended in the Saxons as a replacement for Timo Werner (for Chelsea FC). His letter of recommendation not only had many goals, but also everything that distinguishes him: physical enforcement capacity, speed (32.65 km/h) and one, measured at the length of his crane legs, peculiarly good ball control. Sörloth himself once recorded his suppleness, he attributed to his time as a speed of ice.
In Leipzig, however, Sörloth never really gained a foot, in 29 games he only scored five goals. He moved on, initially lending to San Sebastián, in 2023 Villarreal signed him. One season and 23 goals later he moved to Atlético – for a transfer of 30 million euros, around triple the price that Villarreal had paid to Leipzig. At Atlético, Sörloth is now part of a reserve that has contributed a lot to the excellent interim balance this season. The fact that Atlético is still represented in all competitions also has to do with the fact that 30 out of 82 competitive goals were achieved by substitutes. For comparison: Real Madrid’s substitute players get ten percent of the more than 1o0 goals.
“I imagine the games like a card game: I need all the cards to win,” said Atlético coach Diego Simeone recently. In other words, he repeated what he had previously said Sörloth in four eyes. The striker himself revealed this in an interview with the Norwegian broadcaster TV2: “In our first conversation, he told me that he gave me a nickname: ‘Sicario’.” Simeone said that, Sörloth, he should do nothing else than push the ball over the line whenever the call is done – in the style of a contract killer. Should he be real against the big neighbor, Sörloth would be the largest in part of the Spanish capital.
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