The chaos of Diego Costa rules for Atlético Madrid in rout of Sevilla

Diego Costa shot up the left, bundled Gabriel Mercado to the floor, pushed Clement Lenglet into Éver Banega and then bulldozed into the back of the Frenchman, forearm first, sending him crashing to the ground, and tumbled on top of him with a thud. He got up, crashed into Lenglet for a third time and flew backwards, holding his face, which hadn’t been hit, went to ground again and got up again, wearing a menacing look, and paced at his “aggressor”, looking for more. He was held back by Gabi, handed a yellow card by Juan Martínez Munuera, protested “Who, me?”, begged a bit and asked why, like he didn’t know. He walked away momentarily, a “don’t care” that didn’t last long – just long enough to lure them into his trap – and he was off, hunting down Banega, who didn’t see the stampede coming.

In the blink of an eye, Costa had been and gone and so had the game, a hurricane tearing though Sevilla, its impact likely to be lasting. Through Banega and out the other side with the ball, he smashed it past Sergio Rico, spinning to the ground as he struck it, got up, ran to the stands wild-eyed and growling, skidded on his knees and roared, really roared. The pack raced over, sharing the spoils; the attack had been as ferocious as it was fast. When eventually they stood, he emerged from the middle, got up for the fourth time and, gently now, crossed himself. Then he pointed to the name on his shirt, in case anyone wondered. Diego Costa, distilled: it all happened in 96 seconds.

As Atlético Madrid’s players made their way back to the centre circle in the 29th minute, the referee approached him. “Diego, calm down,” he said but Costa wasn’t going to. Why would he? This is what he does, better than anyone else, it is what they want him to do, and Atlético led at Sevilla where only Betis had won in over a year, Manchester United had been rescued by David de Gea, and Atlético themselves had been knocked out of the Copa del Rey a month before. More than a lead, they had hope – and not just for one night, but beyond. Everything had changed so quickly. In the third minute, Jan Oblak had saved Atlético, mano a mano against Luis Muriel; now, suddenly, there was no stopping them.

Atlético’s goals against column over the last 23 weeks reads: 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0. On Sunday night Sevilla scored two. The only other team to have done that were Girona, back on the opening weekend – in fact, until Sunday, Girona had scored a third of all the goals Atlético had conceded – making this the (joint) worst defensive performance Simeone’s side had produced. It’s a statistic that would annoy them. Antoine Griezmann, standing pitchside, said: “I’m happy, except with the goals we let in.” The Frenchman had the match ball under his arm as he spoke. By the time Pablo Sarabia beat Oblak in the 85th minute and Nolito scored in the 89th, Atlético had scored five. Simeone called it their best display this season, in the second half certainly.

Costa opened the scoring. Griezmann added a wonderful second just before half-time, curling a 20-yard shot into the far corner with his “weak” foot, then scored the third with a penalty after Costa burst into the area and was brought down by Sergio Rico – the first penalty Atlético had been awarded in 30 weeks, and they’d missed the previous six. Koke scored the third, Griezmann backheeling neatly into his path as he dashed in on goal. And then, with five minutes to go, Griezmann added the fifth; 5-0 up, Sevilla’s goals (they also had a penalty denied) meant little and didn’t diminish how comprehensively they had been overrun.

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Writing in El Mundo, Antonio Agredano applied John Wayne’s famous line to Costa and Sevilla’s failure to be forewarned – “a man deserves a second chance, but keep an eye on him” – and noted: “Sevilla had one chance and missed it; Atlético didn’t have any and scored it.” Atlético, Agredano added, turned this into their kind of game. Chaos ruled and, as Marca put it, no one is better amidst chaos than chaos himself. Costa, in other words. “Noise, fury, chaos … a beast,” in the words of Patricia Cazón in AS.

Nor was it just the opener. Atlético’s goals were all different but there was something similar about them: the first four had all come from chasing Sevilla down: relentless, aggressive, convinced. “Robbing those balls isn’t chance,” Simeone said. “For there to be mistakes, there has to be pressure.” And, it is tempting to conclude, for there to be that there has to be Costa.

He has helped make Atlético more, well, atlético. He has proven the perfect partner for Griezmann too. The man that one paper called “our Messi”, has now reached double figures for goals and assists, the only player apart from Messi to do so, and was superb again. In a week dominated by Simeone’s painfully blunt revelation that Fernando Torres will not continue, there is a basic truth: they do not need him much when they have Costa and Griezmann, and Gameiro and Correa (although in all probability Griezmann will leave this summer).

Griezmann is special, a player whose work-rate is startling for a footballer with the talent to be indulged, and with Costa he is even better: Simeone said the Frenchman prefers to play with players ahead of him and when that’s someone like Costa, opening passing avenues, bullying defenders, giving him space and freedom, accelerating the game, creating chaos, then so much the better. The rest benefit too. Costa is the player Simeone has been looking for ever since Costa left, the footballer who allowed him to recover something he’d been searching for since Lisbon, a touch of the old Atlético. On his very first night back, Costa scored, got injured, and got booked, a team-mate admiringly announcing: “He’d stick his foot in the blades of a fan”; on his first game at the Wanda, the new home he never knew, he scored and was sent off. That was Diego distilled. So, too, was this.

“He transmits fear,” Simeone said, happily.

They all do. There was always a sense that if Atlético could stay close, Costa’s arrival could see them really compete, that the creativity and goals, the ruthlessness they lacked before, the limitations that meant too many draws and could only benefit Barcelona, might be remedied. But by the time he was presented, they had already been knocked out of the Champions League, the major competition where a challenge always appeared most plausible and the one that hurt them so badly, in which they had said goodbye to the Calderón amidst a thunderstorm that seemed somehow to say it all. Soon they were knocked out of the cup by Sevilla, too. As for the league, that had gone.

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Or had it? When Atlético scored against Athletic last week, Simeone’s celebration was that of a man who knew his team actually had a chance. They have won seven out of seven in all competitions. In the league in 2018, their record reads: played eight, won seven, drawn one. They have closed the gap on Barcelona to only seven points. Hay Liga, as they say: there is a league. And maybe there really is. “Barça’s Barça,” Costa said, “Even if we win it’s difficult for them to slip up many times.” But it’s not impossible: on Sunday night, the tests began: this was the first of a four-match run at Sevilla, Barcelona, Villarreal and Madrid, and they won it. Next weekend, Atlético go to the Camp Nou.

“They want the league,” ran the cover of Marca, alongside a photo of Costa growling and Griezmann smiling, a portrait of a pair they called “scary”. When he scored the first, Costa roared; when Griezmann got the second he headed to the corner flag, a karaoke microphone to sing into. As he left the pitch, he did so grinning. “Let’s see if I can find a pen,” he said. He had a matchball to sign; he also had a league to play for. “Do you dream of winning the title?” he was asked. “We dream of winning every game,” he said. “And then we’ll see where we are at the end.”

Talking points

“Taxi!” Is that really the worst you can do? There are footballers behaving badly, and then there’s Rubén Semedo who has had as many arrests as starts for Villarreal this season, and won’t be adding to that tally any time soon. After pulling a pistol out at a brothel a couple of months back, having already been picked up by the police before, he’s now in jail charged with attempted murder, kidnap, assault and illegal ownership of a gun.

“We awoke the beast,” Pablo Machín lamented. Girona went 1-0 up at the Camp Nou, but were beaten 6-1 by Barcelona, with Messi producing another performance from another planet. He got two while Luis Suárez got a hat-trick. What Suárez didn’t get was the yellow card that would have seen him suspended for Las Palmas and clear for Atlético. In the last 10 minutes he sought it desperately; the referee, though, was wise to his game and stubbornly refused to give it to him.

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Cristiano Ronaldo, flying again, gave up a hat-trick so the Bernabéu could give it up for Karim Benzema, with whom they’ve mostly been taking it up of late. He scored from the spot, while Bale also scored, meaning all three of the BBC got goals in a 4-0 victory over Alavés. The European Cup has resuscitated them, yet again.

Athletic won at last but that didn’t stop their fans chanting for Cuco Ziganda to get the sack. Not least because they still weren’t any good.

Sergio Asenjo: the man who has been through four – four! – cruciate knee ligament tears, is back again and he saved two penalties as Villarreal scraped past Getafe thanks to an early goal by Ray from Star Wars. “I’m no specialist but today I was inspired,” Asenjo said and so was everyone else. It’s impossible not to feel pleased for him.

Mina, Maxi, Portu, Maxi, Aspas and Stuani. Forget Messi, Ronaldo and Suárez, if you want a guaranteed goal, bet on these six – not one has a better shots-to-goals ratio in Spain.