Konaté Runs the Show as Athletico Tame Legia

In my day a European away night was a battle of nerves before a ball was kicked. On Wednesday in Warsaw it was decided by a man who simply refused to let the game be anything but his.

Athletico Madrid arrived missing José Henrique Arósio and Mario Cardozo, both injured, with Patrice Herrmann absent from the squad altogether. Into the attacking midfield slot came Ndiogou Konaté, and the 26-year-old did not so much fill a hole as widen it. Two assists, four key passes, seven dribbles and 14.3 kilometres of running earned him a 9.9 rating, the equal of Jake Woolley's hat-trick on the night. Konaté kept the ball with the calm of an old inside-forward and carried it like a winger.

Legia Warszawa, young and game, held their shape through a goalless first half and even had a booking to show for their resistance, Maciej Wiśniewski's name taken on the stroke of the interval. But the Poles were chasing shadows for long spells, 40 per cent of the ball and five shots against Athletico's nineteen, twelve of them on target. Woolley, replaced on 71 minutes, took the headlines with three goals; Hüseyin Göktepe, an assist and 14 kilometres of his own, took the plaudits alongside him.

It was Konaté, though, who knitted it all together in the absence of the men who usually do. The club's recent league run, four straight wins and top of the Spanish First Division, has been built on patience; here there was a swagger to it. Krzysztof Dziedzic, still waiting for his first goal since his return, came on late for Woolley and will have to wait a little longer, but nobody in Madrid will mind much this morning.

Three-nil in Warsaw, and the old game still knows how to make a playmaker sing.