Next Saturday, 3rd of January 2015, the current La Liga champions, Atlético Madrid, will entertain Levante, who is slowly recovering from their bad season start, at Vicente Calderón for round 17 of the Spanish Liga BBVA, on a match of paramount importance for Los Colchoneros who cannot allow any more slip ups if they still want to achieve the league title for the second time in a row.

Two weeks ago, Atlético Madrid managed to put an abrupt end to a particularly not impressive row of three matches without a single win by beating Athletic at San Mamés 4-1. The match’s final score might indicate that it was an easy match for Los Colchoneros, but that is not true at all. During the first-half, the home side was fairly more dangerous and it didn’t come as a surprise when Mikel Rico opened the score for Los Leones on the 17th minute. Athletic have somewhat controlled the match during the first 45 minutes and went to the break leading by 1-0. The half-time, however, was good for the visitors, who rallied the troops and returned with a completely different attitude. The French winger Griezmann was beyond any doubts the man of the match as not only he leveled the score on the first minute of the second-half, he also netted in his team’s third and fourth goal. Griezmann was the “hattrick hero” of the match and, at the same time, helped Atlético to walk through that negative moment that was somehow restraining the team.

Next Saturday’s match against Levante may be a good opportunity for Los Colchoneros to return to wins at Vicente Calderón after two truly uninspired performances against Villarreal and L'Hospitalet. For that particular clash, Diego “El Cholo” Simeone will probably still not be able to rely on the contribution of Ansaldi, who is currently recovering from injury.

As for Levante, Les Granotes are currently enjoying a positive moment at La Liga after the disastrous start that culminated in the departure of their former manager, José Luis Mendilibar, after just five months on the job. The arrival of their new boss, Lucas Alcaraz, was a breath of fresh air for Levante, who have only lost two of the ten matches they participated in after he took the helm of the team late in October.

Despite of Levante’s recent positive streak, they might not have what is needed to cause a major upset to Atlético Madrid, who are firm favourites to win the match and desperately want to return to wins at their headquarters.

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - WDLDW

Levante

Stats: W-0 L-0 D-5

Recent Form - DDDDD

Possible Line-ups

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Sequeira - Godín - Gimenez - Tiago - Koke - Griezmann - Koke - Turan - Mandzukic

Levante (4-4-2) - Mariño - López - Vyntra - Navarro - Karabelas - Diop - Simao - Ivanschitz - Morales - Barral - Casadesus

Prediction

Atlético Madrid 2 Levante 0