Next Saturday, 1st of November 2014, the current Spanish champions, Atlético Madrid, will measure forces with the newcomers of Córdoba at Vicente Calderón for round ten of the Spanish Liga BBVA, a match during which the Colchoneros need to continue their recent winning streak in order to prevent the other title contenders from increasing the point gap between them.

A first-half goal by Mario Mandzukic granted Atlético an important but laborious win at Coliseum Alfonso Pérez last Sunday’s night and helped the Colchoneros close the point gap separating them from the league leaders, Barcelona, to just two points.

It was, beyond any doubts, a very complicated match for the current La Liga champions, since Getafe offered Atlético a brave opposition during the entire match, despite the fact of playing for a large period of the second-half with just ten men after Alexis’ red card on the 56’ minute. The match was marked by several moments of confrontation between both sides’ players and, although only one player was sent off after a sideline brawl, many more could have been shown the red card.

Diego Simeone remained faithful to his 4-4-1-1 elastic system that is easily transformed into a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-2-4 approach during the team’s attacking movements, in order to confuse their opponents’ marking tactics.

After slamming Malmo FF in the middle of the week for the UEFA Champions League, Atlético continued their good moment with their arduous win against Getafe and have certainly already forgotten their upset against Valencia earlier this month.

As for Córdoba, the La Liga’s newcomers are experiencing some troubled times on their return to the Spanish football top tier. The lack of wins (Los Califas have not yet won any single match this season) dictated the departure of Albert Ferrer, the man responsible for bringing them back to La Liga after a long and perilous journey through the 2nd and 3rd tier of the Spanish football. The new boss, the Serbian Miroslav Djukic, who had a fantastic footballer career in Spain back in his days, arrived at the club with the purpose of helping them to avoid relegation, but he was unable to snatch a win on his debut match last weekend. Córdoba weren’t able to defeat Real Sociedad, who are also having a season to forget, and the match ended in a 1-1 draw.

Atlético are firm favourites for next Saturday’s match and only an utterly inspired Córdoba could be able to cause some trouble to the current Spanish champions.

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLW

Córdoba

Stats: W-0 L-2 D-3

Recent Form - DLDDL

Possible Line-ups

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Miranda - Godín - Siqueira - Gabi - Koke - Griezmann - Raul Garcia - Turan - Mandzukic

Córdoba (4-2-3-1) - J. Carlos - Pantic - Campabadal - López - Pinillos- Ekeng - Luso - Fidel - Cartabia - Garcia - Ghilas

Prediction

Atlético Madrid 2 Córdoba 0