Joao Felix is Diego Simeone’s NIGHTMARE after the on-loan Barcelona forward damned Atletico Madrid to defeat… the bad feeling between the pair is now off the scale

‘I ONLY talk about my players’ said a fuming Diego Simeone when asked about Joao Felix on Sunday night. There was an obvious flaw in his answer – Joao Felix is Simeone’s player, or at least he is Atletico’s, contracted until 2029.

There was already bad feeling between the player who scored the winner at the Olympic Stadium and the club he had scored against – it went off the scale on Sunday thanks to his goal, his celebration, and his 76-minute wind-up job on his former team-mates.

He appeared to turn and send a kiss to the small group of Atletico Madrid fans behind the goal he had just scored into. And when he went down easily under a challenge from Jose Gimenez shortly afterwards, the Uruguayan had to be dragged away from the Portuguese forward.

Simeone took Gimenez off at half time for fear that he would be sent off. ‘Do you want to fight’ he had said to Joao Felix before Koke stepped in and reminded him that he had already been booked and that Joao Felix was trying to get him a second yellow.

It used to be commonplace in Spain that players could not play against clubs that they were on loan from. But the so-called ‘fear’ clauses (fear that your player will score against you) are used less and less and there is no league rule as there is in England. When Joao Felix’ loan move was completed on deadline day last summer it was part of the agreement to allow him to play in the two games against Atletico Madrid.

Atletico boss Simeone said he ‘only speaks about his players’ after Felix scored, but the Portuguese is still a Madrid player

Felix skipped past Nahuel Molina and lobbed Jan Oblak to score for Barcelona in the 1-0 victory

Would he celebrate was the question posed before the match. There was never really any doubt. He climbed up on the advertising hoardings with arms outstretched having skipped past Nahuel Molina and lobbed Jan Oblak to score.

‘It was the relief of having scored,’ he said. ‘Only the people close to me know what it was like for me and my family this summer.’ Joao Felix was so desperate to leave Simeone and Atletico in pre-season that Barça claimed he had accepted a salary of just 400,000 euros at Barcelona. 

La Liga understood this figure to have been artificially reduced by Barcelona to help them stay inside the league’s restrictions on their spending, and so they logged it as 4m euros. 

Barça later claimed that the player had started so well his earnings had indeed jumped up to 4m euros. Amid the confusion over who is and who isn’t telling the truth, what is clear is that Barça pay his wages and not Atletico Madrid. But that was of very little consolation to Simeone last night.

‘Anyone can have one good game,’ the Argentinian coach had said in the build-up to the match as the debate centred on claims by Antoine Griezmann that Joao Felix struggled to be consistent at Atletico.

The 24-year-old Portuguese forward responded by saying that he preferred Barcelona’s style of play to Atletico’s and that all the Atletico players felt the same way. ‘I have a good relationship with them,’ he said after Sunday’s game. It is hard to see how that remains the case after a week of bad feeling.

They certainly can’t wait to see him again, though. March 17 is the return fixture and Gimenez, Simeone and the Atletico Madrid supporters will have already circled the date in next year’s calendar.

Joao Felix would like to go into that game as a Barcelona player but it is out of the question that they will have the money to make his deal permanent in January.

Felix and Simeone’s relationship soured in the summer with the forward eventually joining Barcelona on-loan

Felix walked past Simeone to celebrate with Barcelona boss Xavi (left) after the match

If there is any permanent signing then it will have to happen next summer. Atletico are more intent now than ever in making Barcelona pay 80m euros for the player they signed from Benfica for 127m euros in 2019.

Barcelona will welcome 18-year-old Brazilian striker Vitor Roque from Athletico Paranaense this January to compete with the misfiring Robert Lewandowski and that will leave no financial wriggle room to allow for more activity in the winter window.

Will they now definitely buy Joao Felix at the end of the season when his loan ends? They might struggle to find the money without including players in the deal to bring the price down. His consistency going forward will be key to how hard they try.

The one thing in their favour is that for all that he knows releasing him will make him happy, Simeone more than ever, just wants to see the back of Joao Felix.  He can’t abide him in his squad, it will hurt for a while that on Sunday night his team couldn’t stop him.