Substitute Thiago Almada struck his first goal for Atlético Madrid to hand Diego Simeone’s side a hard-fought La Liga win over Osasuna, lifting them into the top four.
The Argentine playmaker found the net in the 69th minute at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano, sealing a 1-0 victory that not only avenged recent defeats to Osasuna, who had beaten Atlético in two of their last three encounters, but also provided a morale boost ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League clash with Arsenal.
Atlético began brightly, with Antoine Griezmann twice testing Sergio Herrera in the opening stages before Álex Baena thought he had broken the deadlock in the ninth minute. However, VAR intervened to rule his effort out for offside.
Herrera remained busy throughout the first half, denying both Griezmann and Julián Álvarez, while Osasuna threatened sporadically through Víctor Muñoz and Lucas Torró.
Despite the hosts’ dominance, the sides went into the interval level.
After the restart, Pablo Barrios and Marcos Llorente continued to probe, but it took the introduction of Almada to finally unlock the visitors.
The substitute latched onto a clever pass from Giuliano Simeone before finishing coolly past Herrera to put Atlético in front.
Osasuna pushed for a late equalizer, with Ante Budimir forcing a superb save from Jan Oblak in the dying moments, but Atlético held firm to claim all three points and continue their push toward the top of the table.
