Alvarez was not in the squad, and Atletico were three up at Sevilla by half-time
Alex Baena scored twice on his first start of the season and Ademola Lookman added the other as Atletico Madrid won 3-1 at Sevilla, three days before the Spanish transfer window shuts.
Aug 30, 2026
Atletico Madrid played the game everyone was watching for one absent player, and won it inside 33 minutes. Julian Alvarez was not in the squad at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan on Saturday, not even on the bench, and by the time the teams went in at half-time Atletico were 3-0 up. It finished 3-1, overnight in India, and it was Sevilla’s first defeat of the season.
Baena’s first start of the season, and two goals from it
Alex Baena had come off the bench in the win over Malaga and again in the draw with Villarreal. Given a start at Sevilla, he scored after four minutes, taking a through ball from Lee Kang-in and finishing first time across Odisseas Vlachodimos from a tight angle.
Ademola Lookman made it two on 26 minutes. He picked the ball up on the left from Pablo Barrios, shaped as though he would drive it across the face of goal, and instead beat Vlachodimos at the near post from outside the area.
The third, seven minutes later, was the one Sevilla will look at again. Marcos Llorente rolled a pass to Baena on the edge of the box, nobody closed him down, and he hit it low past Vlachodimos. Three goals, three different suppliers, and a home defence that kept giving the ball back.
Sevilla got one back on 67 minutes when Atletico failed to clear a Gabriel Suazo cross and Miguel Sierra volleyed in with his left foot. That was as far as the comeback went.
Simeone on Baena, and on the striker who was not there
Diego Simeone had plenty to say about the player who played. “He’s being a game-changer,” the Atletico coach said of Baena. “Last year he started well. The confidence, security, the joy, the emotions of the World Cup were good for him. Today I was saying to him that it can help him to make the most of his potential, because he’s a difference maker. We’ll demand this level of him.”
On Alvarez, who has not trained with the squad for most of the week, Simeone was shorter. “It’s a personal process,” he said. “We’re here to help him in a sporting sense and for him to help us, because he’s an extraordinary player.” Asked what might happen before the window shuts on Tuesday, he offered the line every coach offers in the last week of August: anything can happen, it always can, and he was not saying it about anyone in particular.
Alvarez was left out for the league opener too, and was booed by Atletico’s own supporters when he came on as a substitute against Villarreal last Sunday. Atletico have said publicly they will not sell him to Barcelona, which is where he wants to go.
What the win did to the table
Seven points from three games, unbeaten, and top of La Liga at least until the rest of the round was played out on Sunday. That is a better August than Atletico have managed in some recent seasons, and they have done it while their best forward has been training on his own.
Sevilla, who had won two and drawn one before this, drop their first points of the campaign in the worst possible fashion: three goals conceded in a first half at home, none of them from anything you would call a moment of brilliance.