Forlan and Resino lead Atletico's resurgence.

The Abel Resino era began with a bang. Kun Aguerro scored just three minutes into their match against Recreativo Huelva and Diego Forlan added two goals as Atletico romped to a 3-0 road victory. Recreativo, who had been unbeaten in their first five games of the New Year, seemed to be a tough test for an Atletico side that hadn’t won in seven games and had lost 2-1 at home to Valladolid the previous weekend. That result led to the dismissal of manager Javier Aguirre and the appointment of former goalkeeper and fan favorite Resino. In danger of falling out of contention for the Champions League, this victory puts los colchoneros just two points behind Valencia and Villareal for the final spot. It’s a fantastic start for Resino and a much needed victory for Atletico.

Most teams of the week are a compilation of individual players to create a weekly dream team. But since everyone does that, I’ve decided to go an opposite direction and name one club per week. The criteria is that you either won a big match, won utterly convincingly, or won a match to stop a bad losing streak. If you did all three, then you most definitely are my team.

This week’s team is Liverpool. Mostly because the other big clubs had less than stellar weeks against lesser competition, and there were no shocking upsets amongst the mid-table clubs. Acknowledging that Frank Lampard’s sending off was highly questionable, and that they didn’t get their goals until minutes to go in the match. But after a month in which they slipped to second in the table and seemed a team in free fall, a match at home against a Chelsea side that had been tough on the road and also needed to win, was make or break. Taking care of the Blues and quieting the criticism for a week makes them my Team of the Week.