Argentine Julián Álvarez Without a Goal in Ten Matches as Atlético Waits

Fifty-four days since his last Champions League goal, Julián Álvarez is living football’s pressure at Atlético Madrid. Ten matches, minutes piling up, and shots have not moved the scoreboard, even as teammates insist the finish will return soon enough.

The Last Goal Still Echoes in Eindhoven

The moment is easy to replay because it arrived with the clean logic of a striker’s life. Minute thirty-seven at the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven, after a fast start from PSV. A pass from Alexander Sørloth across the face of the goal. Julián Álvarez, nicknamed La Araña, nudging it in. The net ripples. The noise changes. Atlético steadies itself, then suffers, then escapes with a two-three win that felt, in its own small way, like a statement.

It was also his last goal in an Atlético shirt.

That was December nine, two thousand twenty-five. On February one, two thousand twenty six, the drought is no longer a talking point. It is the frame around him. The notes put it plainly: fifty-four days without scoring, a run that had already reached seven hundred fifteen minutes and twenty-six shots by January twenty-seven, then continued through two more appearances without relief.

The trouble is that droughts do not stay static. They gather little details that make them heavier. A run that once looked like a league issue, softened by European production, becomes complete silence across competitions. Álvarez had already been dry in LaLiga when he scored against PSV, but Europe kept the balance. Now it is ten consecutive official matches without a goal since that Eindhoven night, and the balance has tipped.

An everyday ritual is implied here. Fans check the match clock for the last time he scored, then recheck it. The striker does the same, whether he admits it or not—a forward lives in numbers that keep time.

Shots, Minutes, and the Math of a Slump

The sequence of games is not presented as drama in the notes, but as an accumulation. Valencia, Girona, Real Sociedad. Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup, a full ninety minutes. Deportivo de La Coruña in the Copa del Rey. Alavés. Galatasaray in the Champions League. Mallorca. Then Bodø/Glimt on January twenty-eight, a one-two defeat at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano, where Álvarez was substituted in the fifty-seventh minute. Then Levante UD on January thirty-one, a nil-nil, where he entered in the twenty-seventh minute after Sørloth was injured.

Two matches, two different shapes of frustration. Against Bodø/Glimt, Atlético loses, and the forward comes off before the hour. Against Levante, Atlético cannot find a way through, and Álvarez, coming in cold, still poses a threat—a header saved at minute sixty-nine. A late effort stopped at ninety plus four. The goalkeeper is forced to work. The net stays still.

This is where the numbers start to argue with the narrative people want to tell about a striker who has “forgotten” how to finish. The notes describe the hard production line that framed the drought through January twenty-seven: twenty-six shots in that stretch, five on target, thirteen off, eight blocked. The expected goals figure for the run, 1.6, suggests something subtler than pure individual failure. Chances exist, but not enough clean ones. Or they arrive in the wrong rhythm. Or they come and do not fall.

What this does is shift the conversation from blame to context without erasing responsibility. A forward is paid, in the end, for goals. But football is not only a striker and a ball. A team that cannot turn pressure into clear looks also shares the weight of a dry spell.

The notes add a small but telling detail after January twenty-seven: more minutes, more attempts, including two shots on target against Levante, and still no breakthrough. In a slump, even “on target” can feel like a cruel compliment.

Simeone’s Patience and Atlético’s Stakes

Diego Simeone has not hidden himself. He has kept Álvarez close, used him regularly, defended him publicly, and framed the performance as more than the final touch. “Julián hizo un partido fantástico, sin gol, pero fantástico,” Simeone said, in the notes, insisting he played a fantastic match even without scoring.

That is a coach’s loyalty, but it is also a coach’s calculation. Simeone needs Álvarez at his most decisive. The team needs it too. There is a reason a drought becomes headline material at a club like Atlético, where tight matches and narrow margins are not an exception but an identity. When goals are scarce, every missed moment feels larger.

Teammates have leaned into the language of inevitability. Nico González reduced it to a phase, calling him a top player and saying he is sure Álvarez will come out of it because he is stronger than anyone. Johnny Cardoso echoed the same idea, describing total confidence and saying his moment will arrive.

The wager here is that belief can hold long enough for the striker’s timing to return, without the season’s demands outpacing patience. This is not a crisis described in panic in the notes, but a problem that has begun to shape how every appearance is read. A forward can play well, press well, move well, and even scare defenses. But the scoreboard has a way of making everything else feel like a preface.

In Eindhoven, Álvarez’s touch was final and straightforward. Since then, the story has been about everything that comes before the finish, and everything that follows its absence. The longer it goes, the more each near miss becomes a small test of character, not just technique.

At one end of this run sits a goal in the thirty-seventh minute against PSV, a pass from Sørloth and a net that gave way. At the other sits a header saved at sixty-nine and a late shot stopped at ninety plus four against Levante. Between them, ten matches, seven hundred fifteen minutes counted at one point along the way, and a growing insistence from the people around him that this is temporary.

Football keeps receipts. So do strikers.

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