Lookman Won A Madrid Derby, And Simeone Said So Out Loud

Sports

Madrid · Tuesday 22 September 2026

Atletico Madrid beat Real Madrid 2-1 in the derby, and Diego Simeone praised Ademola Lookman afterwards. Simeone had said before the game that his team needed him.

football stadium night crowd madrid Photograph by Alex Azabache via Unsplash.

Why the praise is the story rather than the result

Simeone has managed Atletico for well over a decade and built a reputation on treating individual brilliance as secondary to the collective. Managers like that do not usually name players in public. When one does, it is a signal to the dressing room as much as to the press.

What Lookman moved for. He left Atalanta for Atletico in February, a bigger club in a bigger league with a manager who demands defensive work from his forwards. The risk in that move was always that his best qualities, which are improvisation and one-against-one, are the ones Simeone's system tends to sand down. A derby win with his manager crediting him is the clearest evidence yet that it has not.

The Nigerian context

This week for Nigerian forwards
Osimhen	Out injured, misses the qualifiers
Lookman	Wins a Madrid derby, praised by Simeone
Chukwueze	Starting regularly at Milan
Iheanacho	Eight straight scoring games in Turkey

Three of those four are available for Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau.

The Super Eagles keep being described as thin at the top of the pitch. That description was accurate in August and it is looking less accurate every weekend.

What it is worth at national level

A player trusted in the biggest fixture in Spanish club football is a player who can be trusted with a qualifier in Antananarivo. Nigeria's problem in recent windows has not been talent but availability and form arriving at the same time. For once, in September, some of it has.

Reporting: TheNiche, Daily Post Nigeria and Afrik-Foot.

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• Iwobi And Bassey Played Well, And Fulham Still Have Not Won
• Chukwueze Kept His Place, And Milan Got The Win
• Tinubu Is Skipping The UN General Assembly For A Third Year

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