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The moment André stepped onto the pitch, the observant fans noticed something shift in Atlético's shape.
Griezmann's position dropped slightly deeper, operating more as a number ten than a striker, while André stationed himself at the very tip of the attack. But once play resumed, it became clear that André wasn't fixed in one spot—his movement was constant, his range of activity enormous. He and Griezmann swapped positions fluidly, interchanging like they'd been playing together for years rather than mere days.
More importantly, Atlético's advantage in central areas expanded dramatically.
The difference was André himself. When he received the ball as a link-up player, his technical ability made it nearly impossible for Levante's defenders to dispossess him. Correa, who'd occupied that role earlier in the match, simply couldn't offer the same presence. Levante had frustrated Atlético for most of the ninety minutes by packing the space between their defensive midfielders and back line, denying Simeone's men any room to operate in the final third.
André broke that stranglehold within minutes of entering the pitch.
Seventy-fifth minute.
André dropped deep again to receive a pass, his back to goal. Behind him, Levante's defensive midfielder Bardhi was stuck to him like glue, using every subtle physical provocation in the book—shirt tugs, hip checks, little pinches to André's waist that the referee couldn't possibly see.
In the ten minutes since André had come on, his touches had put Bardhi under immense pressure. The Levante man was running on pure adrenaline now, unable to relax for even a second. Every time the ball came near André, Bardhi's heart rate spiked.
If you pinch me one more time, André thought grimly, feeling the man's fingers dig into his side again, I swear I'm going to hurt you.
"Keep your mouth shut, kid," Bardhi muttered in his ear, breath hot against André's neck. "What's wrong? Past your bedtime?"
Fine. You asked for this.
At that moment, Koke completed a steal in midfield. After a quick adjustment, he sent a crisp ground pass toward André's feet.
The ball was moving fast. André watched it roll toward him, his body tensing, completely ignoring Bardhi's constant harassment from behind. He didn't need to look. He could sense where the defender was positioned—felt the man's weight distribution, his balance, his breathing pattern.
Then he struck.
A quick flick with his right heel sent the ball through Bardhi's legs. A nutmeg. Clean and humiliating.
André spun left immediately, toward the referee's position. His bulky frame naturally shielded the official's view of what came next. And as he turned, his left arm swung in what looked like a natural balancing motion—except his elbow drove sharply into Bardhi's solar plexus.
The impact was precise. Devastating. Invisible.
Bardhi, who'd been trying to follow André's turn, froze mid-motion and crumpled to the ground, all the air driven from his lungs.
The referee, standing on André's left, saw nothing suspicious. From his angle, it looked like Bardhi had simply lost a physical battle and fallen over. He signalled for play to continue with both hands, completely ignoring the Levante man's furious protests from the turf.
"Did you teach him that?" Simeone asked Vivas on the touchline, not taking his eyes off the pitch.
"I gave him the theory over the past few days. Some basics about positioning, timing, angles." Vivas grinned broadly. "The execution? That's all natural talent. He's a genius, Diego. A natural."
On the pitch, André's quick escape had torn a gaping hole in Levante's defensive structure. They hadn't expected Bardhi to be bypassed so easily—he was supposed to be their shield, their first line of protection.
Having shaken off his marker, André accelerated through the centre with the ball at his feet. His stride was deceptively quick, covering ground faster than his lumbering frame suggested possible. Levante's other defensive midfielder, Campaña, was forced to abandon his marking assignment on Griezmann and rush toward André.
He had no choice. If André reached the penalty area unchallenged, the consequences could be catastrophic.
When the distance was right, Campaña launched into a fierce sliding tackle—studs showing, legs fully extended, completely committed to winning the ball.
André performed a sudden stop directly in front of him.
The ball was pulled back with his left foot, then flicked diagonally with his right. Man and ball glided past Campaña's sliding body with almost contemptuous ease. The defender's tackle connected with nothing but grass.
Immediately after, André wound up his right leg, his body coiling into a shooting posture. Every line of his frame screamed power shot incoming.
Levante had deployed a three-at-the-back system for this match. André had already beaten both of their defensive midfielders. Centre-back Róber Pier, seeing André ready to shoot from the edge of the penalty area, had no choice but to step forward aggressively and attempt to block the strike.
But André's next move left him frozen in place.
The right leg that had been swinging so powerfully suddenly dropped soft. Instead of a thunderous strike toward goal, André's foot produced a delicate chip—floating the ball gently toward the left side of the goal, away from the covering defenders.
When Róber Pier whipped his head around in horror, he saw Griezmann materialising at the ball's landing point as if from nowhere. The Frenchman had read André's intentions perfectly.
The fake shot hadn't just fooled the defenders. Levante's goalkeeper Oier had committed too, diving to his right in anticipation of the blast that never came. He was completely stranded, nowhere near the actual trajectory of the ball.
What followed was simple execution.
André's pass was perfectly weighted, perfectly placed. Griezmann controlled it with his chest and volleyed it into the net before the ball even touched the ground. A sweet strike, clean and true.
1-1.
Seventy-seventh minute. Atlético Madrid had equalised through Griezmann.
After scoring, Griezmann didn't run to the corner flag. Didn't slide on his knees in front of the home supporters. Instead, he turned and pointed at André with both hands, grinning broadly.
The message was clear. He knew who deserved the real credit for this goal. The assist was just the final touch—the whole move had been André's creation.
On the touchline, Simeone grabbed Vivas and Burgos in celebration, high-fiving both men with uncharacteristic exuberance. The normally stoic manager was bouncing on his toes like a kid at Christmas.
The home fans in the stands erupted. They hadn't expected happiness to arrive so suddenly. When André had come on as a substitute, they'd offered polite applause—encouragement mixed with curiosity about the expensive new signing. That curiosity had been answered in barely ten minutes.
The knowledgeable supporters understood exactly who had created this goal. And now they were beginning to understand what Atlético had actually bought for twenty-three million euros.
The stadium's big screen replayed the sequence on loop: André evading Campaña's slide tackle, the fake shot, the perfectly disguised chip pass to the unmarked Griezmann.
The applause started sporadically but gradually became rhythmic. Synchronised. A chant began building in the stands, growing louder with each repetition.
"KING KONG! KING KONG! KING KONG!"
André frowned slightly even as he jogged back into position for the restart.
How the hell did that nickname follow me all the way to Madrid?
On the pitch, Bardhi was still protesting to the referee. He kept using exaggerated gestures to demonstrate what André had done to him—mimicking the elbow strike, pointing at his chest, pleading for justice. In his agitation, he didn't notice that his spit was spraying everywhere, forcing the referee to back away with an increasingly disgusted expression.
Bardhi genuinely felt wronged. That elbow had nearly knocked the wind out of him permanently. He was certain—absolutely certain—that the illegal blow had directly led to the goal.
The referee reached into his pocket, expression darkening.
For a tense moment, it looked like a card was coming out. But Levante's captain rushed over just in time, grabbed Bardhi by the arm, and physically dragged him away while apologising profusely to the official. The intervention calmed things enough to prevent further escalation.
Soon, under the referee's supervision, players from both sides took their positions. The match was about to restart.
Less than twenty minutes remained on the clock. The score was level at 1-1. Everything was still to play for.
A young tiger roars in the valley, and all beasts tremble with fear.
This was André Cristiano's first La Liga match. And the way it had started?
That was just the beginning.