Koke Urges Calm Around Julián Álvarez After Liverpool Loss

On a night when Atlético Madrid needed the conversation to be about football, it circled straight back to Julián Álvarez.

At Anfield, Atlético led, competed, and ultimately fell 2-1 to Liverpool in the Champions League on Wednesday. Álvarez, starting and completing his first full 90 minutes of the season, wasted no time reminding everyone what he can do with the ball, sliding a precise pass for Marcos Llorente to strike the opener.

For a brief spell, that assist felt like a reset button on a chaotic summer.

Liverpool had other ideas. Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister turned the game on its head, punishing Atlético and sending Diego Simeone’s side back to Spain empty-handed. The result hurt, but the noise around Álvarez hurt in a different way.

“We’re tired of it”

The Argentine forward spent the summer pushing hard to join Barcelona. Atlético stood firm and blocked the move. The fallout was messy: a split among supporters, questions over commitment, and a player trying to navigate the backlash while waiting for the window to close.

Koke has had enough of that storyline.

Speaking to Movistar after the final whistle, the Atlético captain delivered a clear message to the media and to anyone still relitigating the saga.

“We're tired [of it],” Koke told Movistar. “We have to leave the boy alone, to let him enjoy himself, to let him do his job and play football. Between all of us, we have to leave him in peace, because it's been a really tiresome summer from [the media]. Let's hope he can be left in peace to do his job.”

No dressing-down. No public rebuke of Álvarez. Instead, a firm defence of a teammate who, in Koke’s eyes, now needs space more than scrutiny.

Llorente backs Álvarez in the spotlight

The man who benefited most directly from Álvarez’s return to the XI did not hesitate to back him either.

Llorente, who finished that “marvellous assist” to put Atlético in front at Anfield, underlined how the squad views the forward.

“He's a very important player for us,” Llorente told reporters. “He gave me a marvellous assist. That's what we need. We need him to be right, to be sharp, because he's been a long time without competing.

“He did well, he worked hard, he ran, that's what we need. What I can say is we're with Julián, he's our player, a teammate. He's important and he makes the difference.”

The message from inside the dressing room is consistent: the summer is over, the window is shut, and Álvarez is theirs. Whatever happened in June, July, or August, Atlético’s players want the conversation to move to what he does from September onwards.

A relationship to repair

That, of course, is the real task now. The tension with sections of the Atlético fanbase has not vanished just because the deadline passed. Many supporters were angered by Álvarez’s push to join Barcelona and will not be won over by one assist on a European night, however sharp it was.

But performances like this give him a starting point.

With Los Rojiblancos sitting sixth in La Liga after two wins, one draw and one defeat, the margin for error is slim if they want to stay in the title conversation. Domestic form has to steady quickly after the European disappointment, and the next test comes against Real Sociedad.

For Álvarez, that fixture offers something more personal: another chance to keep his place in the starting XI and show the home crowd he is committed to the shirt he currently wears.

The noise around his name will not vanish overnight. If he keeps creating and deciding games, though, the soundtrack at the Metropolitano may start to sound very different.