When at last the battle was over, the Little Prince picked up his shield, their shield that they had fought for, and raised it to the dark night sky. If a picture tells a story, try this one from Denis Doyle late on Sunday night, something epic in it, football made film, a gift: Antoine Griezmann and the grand gesture. A cliche, sure, yet cinematic too, a poster for the premiere and possibly even planned, overblown the way it’s supposed to be. Taken from the final scene, The End and also a beginning, another saga starting. “We go together,” the Frenchman said. “This is the path towards dreaming something big.”

With 93 minutes gone against Sevilla, a man falling at his feet, Griezmann turned and smashed a shot in off the bar, victory secured at the last with the 5,000th goal in the club’s history, From 3-1 down, Atlético were now 4-3 up, heading to victory while their opponents slipped to their knees. As the ball bounced back out the net, Alexander Sørloth sent it sailing over the bar and into the north stand and Griezmann ran west, throwing his shirt almost as high. It floated and fell, then he gathered it from the field. Now he stood in the wind, blond hair swept back, a little Legolas, red against a black sky, shield raised, sleeves like ribbons around it.

It was some portrait, the man supporters call the Principito and the shield they campaigned to bring back, city bear and bush the way history demands, and some finale for the season’s best game so far. Homeric, one paper called it. An apotheosis, another said. Griezmann had struck one off the bar and out after three minutes and now another off the bar and in after 93; between those, there had been six goals, all brilliant. In a single night, Atlético let in as many as they had all season at the Metropolitano, but scored one more. Six men scored; Griezmann got two. “We love him very much,” manager Diego Simeone said afterwards. “He’s has always given absolutely everything to Atlético Madrid.”

Here, he gave them another victory. Only three players in history have ever directly contributed more points: Raúl and those two. He will catch Cristiano Ronaldo very soon, a solitary point away now, and Raúl shouldn’t be far behind, leaving him top of that familiar category: “apart from Messi”. One-nil up, Atlético were 3-1 down on the hour. In the 62nd minute, Griezmann got his first to make it 3-2. Samuel Lino made it 3-3 in the 79th, his first of the season and a goal he said he had been waiting for. And then, into injury time, Griezmann appeared again, turning cleverly and crashing a shot in off the bar, Kike Salas left in tears.

The team that scored a 95th-minute equaliser against Real Madrid, an 90th-minute winner against Leipzig and another in the 90th against PSG, who had beaten Alavés in the 86th, Celta on 90 and Athletic on 92, who had scored on 81 and 99 to beat Leganes 3-1, and even needed goals on 92 and 96 against little Cacereño in the cup, the side who have managed 22 of their 46 goals after minute 75 and 12 of then in added time, had defeated Sevilla. “It hurts,” said Sevilla forward Dodi Lukebakio. “Painful,” goalkeeper Álvaro Fernández called it, his first league game ending in a loss. Sevilla have now gone 48 visits to Madrid, Atlético and Barcelona without a win.

When the final whistle went, Atlético’s manager dashed past, never over, the shield at the side of the pitch, up the tunnel and turned left down the passageway to the dressing room, past the corner where a group of Argentinians would soon gather. Behind him, his staff came. “You have to suffer,” one said, but it was better this way, the battle bringing them together again. Bringing them to another one too. “La Liga in flames,” AS declared; it was Atlético who had set fire to it, Marca said. This was “a comeback for the title” – a result to make them believe. Because, much as Simeone was talking game by game as ever, even while he claimed he was looking in the other direction and that the result that pleased him this weekend was Athletic’s win over Villarreal, which opened a gap over fifth, victory on Sunday night puts them just three points off Barcelona at the top with a game in hand …

Things have changed. When Atlético were beaten 1-0 at Betis, it was only the end of October but it was over. Not just because of the defeat but because of the draws, because of how they were playing: it was their first loss but Atlético had been held five times and were fifth, 10 points behind Barcelona. That day too there had been no fight, let alone any football. The following morning, the usual debrief in the video room at Cerro del Espino lasted almost an hour longer than usual. It was direct, blunt, truths told. They could not carry on like this, Simeone told them. All those things that made Atlético Atlético were absent, the collective identity gone. They had to come together, and fast, or it was finished.

“It’s been 12 years building this, we can’t break from that,” Simeone said. “We have to compete.”

“We have to know what our identity is, what Atlético Madrid have been all these years,” Koke said after they beat Las Palmas the following week. “An intense, aggressive team that reads games well, that defends well, that is good on the counter, where everyone fights so that the forwards can win the game. We can’t allow ourselves to be confused or mistaken by what’s out there or in here. Even if you spend, because the market forces you to spend, being strong defensively is what has led us to fight for titles, and win them. I hope we can all understand what Atlético Madrid is.”

The shift has not come without debate from within the technical staff themselves. Nor without some trial and error either, meritocracy applied, opportunities there to be taken, pieces starting to fall into place. This weekend was the first time in almost 60 games that Atlético stuck with the same team two matches running. Javi Galán, once the last man on any list, a footballer his coach didn’t see a place for, has become a starter. Clément Lenglet played at last and stayed there. Koke has slipped from the starting XI. Five at the back has become four. The midfield has Conor Gallagher on the left and Simeone’s son Giuliano on the right and not because of parental bias, quite the opposite: his intensity is revelation.

Atlético have won nine out of nine since then, five in a row in La Liga. It is their best run since 2015. In the meantime, Barcelona have dropped five points; Madrid meanwhile, have been beaten by Athletic. And if at times Atlético have had to fight to survive – winning away to PSG was a miracle and they produced just two shots on target at Mallorca – until this weekend, they had conceded just one in their last four league games. Last week they put five past Valladolid. And nor, in truth, should Sunday have been as epic as it turns out to be.

This was not like Paris or Bilbao, not even like Vigo and Alavés. “They were getting closer and closer: they are very, very good,” Lukebakio said. “The jug goes to the fountain so often it breaks,” Álvaro said, inevitability as defined by Cervantes. He had made five saves, and watched Atlético keep coming from everywhere, including the bench, and that’s the other thing. “It was their subs that imposed themselves upon us,” Sevilla coach Xavi García Pimienta said. “It makes me happy when those waiting for their chance come on and do well,” Simeone said. His is the strongest squad in Spain, some of the visitors believe, and no one has had more of a contribution from their subs. Here Koke, Ángel Correa, and Lino had all come on, the latter belting in the goal that made it 3-2. So had Sørloth, who had four clear headed chances in four minutes.

Sevilla had been looking at the clock for what felt like for ever, grip slipping. By the end, Atlético had 10 shots on target, Sevilla had three. The surprise was not so much that Atlético found a way through in the 93rd minute, but that it took that long. “They go and go and go and go and go and go and go … it’s not chance,” Simeone said. “And in the end Griezmann closed a lovely night.” The Metropolitano erupted and, victory secured, battle won, the Little Prince struck a pose, shield held to the sky. Time then for another epic? A fight for the title again? “Every time we look up there are two monsters”” Atlético Madrid’s manager said. So bring them on.