E lite football is more attacking now than at any time since the coming of systematisation in the mid-60s. Between 1994‑95 – when the Champions League first incorporated quarter-finals after the group stage – and 2007-08, there were only two seasons in which an average of more than three goals per game was scored in the knockout stages. Since then there has been only one season when that average has not been higher than 3.0, and in each of the past three it has been higher than 3.5.
As José Mourinho’s star has waned, there has been only one real exception to that trend: Atlético Madrid, who face Liverpool in the Champions League on Tuesday. Twice Champions League finalists in the last decade, the La Liga club play a form of football that has come to be known, after their manager, Diego “Cholo” Simeone, as cholismo, a word coined by the journalist Mario Torrejón in 2012 to contrast their muscular pragmatism with the “tiki‑taka” of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona.
Related: Kieran Trippier out of Atlético's Champions League first leg against Liverpool
Related: Jürgen Klopp says Liverpool are not favourites to win Champions League
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