Atlético's Hitman bursts from Spider’s shadow to end 18-year wait at Barça | Sid Lowe

Diego Simeone summons Alexander Sørloth from the bench to finish off anyone daring to hold up his title charge

The first time Diego Simeone met Alexander Sørloth, he told him he had come up with a name for him. “He calls me Hitman, I hope to live up to that,” the Norwegian said, and so when the boss needed a really big job doing this weekend, there he was: 6ft 4in and 15 stone of ice cool striding past the bodies lying at his feet. He had sat in the shadows silently watching, biding his time, working out where the opportunity would arise and he could appear and then, at just the right moment, he did. He had known and now it was done, plan executed to perfection. Sørloth shotgun. “Cold,” Simeone called him.

There were 23 seconds left on Saturday night when Sørloth scored the goal that beat Barcelona 2-1 at Montjuïc and it had to be him: a single shot, the aim as true as the timing, sending Atlético Madrid to the top of the table, a little bit of history made and title credentials confirmed. It is 13 years since Simeone became coach and he has transformed the club, leaving the Camp Nou in 2014 with a league title that may still be the greatest feat the competition has ever seen, and taking another title seven years later. But he had never actually won a La Liga game against Barcelona there and Atlético had not done so since February 2006, back when Fernando Torres was a player not a plasterer. Sørloth on the other hand had: in 2022-23 he had come with Real Sociedad and scored the second in a 2-1 win, in 2023-24 he had scored in the 99th minute to take Villarreal to victory, and now this. Three years, three clubs, three wins. “I told him: you had to come for us to win here,” Jan Oblak said.

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