Phil Ball: Simeone and the rise of Atletico

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  • Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone has a knack of uniting a squad that is reminiscent of Jose Mourinho.

    I never thought I would say (or write) this, but I’m beginning to like Atlético Madrid. I wouldn’t want to play against them, but playing for them at the moment seems like some sort of statement of intent, some sort of assertion of a collective philosophy – all for one and one for all! It’s the sort of unnerving unison that Jose Mourinho, in his most successful periods, manages to instil in his squads, usually by stoking the myth that the world is against him, the club and the players, and thus breeding a sort of bunker philosophy that prompts his officers and soldiers to die for him, and for one another.

    – Cartlidge: Sevilla a fascinating club for all wrong reasons

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    Diego Simeone, an often brutal player and the axis of the Atlético title winners in the mid-nineties, has transformed and channelled his aggression into a surprisingly articulate vision of football that his players understand and respect. Like the charismatic villain in an intelligent crime series, where you could see El Cholo getting the quietly-spoken assassin’s role in a new run of the The Sopranos, you wouldn’t mess with him, even on a good day. In general, footballers like to be managed by men like this, just so long as they also show their nicer side, from time to time. And the more successful Atlético have become, the more humane and interesting Simeone has appeared to become – save the occasional ‘up yours’ and a slap round the head to some witless officials – but that’s the nature of the villain. In the end, the testosterone will out, but we still quite like him.

    “Like the charismatic villain in an intelligent crime series like The Sopranas, you wouldn’t mess with Simeone, even on a good day.”

    It’s all rather baffling for those of us who were around in 1996 to witness Simeone famously take out Athletic Bilbao’s Julen Guerrero, a metro-sexual icon before the term was invented. Such was Guerrero’s popularity that a whole generation of twenty-something Spaniards are now called ‘Julen’, but Simeone had the temerity to put his studs through Guerrero’s thigh in front of the Basque’s adoring fans in San Mamés. The foul immortalised him as a sort of thuggish nightmare bogeyman, and next season he decided to part for the more welcoming culture of Inter Milan, a club with a proud history of scary monsters, of players who went bump in the night.

    His return to Atlético, with the club still thriving on its edgy hard-man image, was perhaps inevitable. The club’s godfather, Jesus Gil, had died back in 2004, but the lawless legacy of the club lived on. In sporting terms, however, Atlético were 10th  in late 2011 when El Cholo returned, all guns blazing. They had just been knocked out of the cup by Albacete, then in Segunda B, and seemed on a downward slide. The rest, as they say, needs no mention.

    Yet despite the messy ultras business, despite their debts to the Spanish tax authorities, and despite their bad-assed reaction to defeats such as the one suffered in midweek at home to Barcelona (knocking them out of the Copa del Rey), there has been a perceptible shift in the country’s attitude towards them, as if they had come in from the cold. They haven’t, of course, but the 162 million earnings from last season’s successful campaign has alerted their owners to the business possibilities of honing their image and smooth-talking the sponsors – traditionally attracted to the whitewashed walls of the Bernabéu, sitting smugly in Madrid’s business district, not out in the hood, on the polluted banks of the Manzanares. The Chinese entrepreneur, Wang Jainlin, has been the first to arrive, purchasing a 20 percent stake and handing the club a Dh187 million (€45m) booster which should help pay off the tax debts that still hover like a cloud over the Calderon. More money may follow.

    This would help Atlético to prevent a recurrence of their traditional summer sales. And yet despite the departures of three key players (Diego Costa, Filipe Luis and Thibaut Courtois), and Radamel Falcao the summer before, the team remains doggedly competitive. Saturday night’s game at Eibar was potentially classic theatre. Eibar have already been dubbed the poor man’s Atlético, partly due to their peculiar fan base but mainly due to their maximising of the collective concept of football. Eibar have nothing like the quality that Atlético possess in their ranks, nor the urban mass that sustains its particular club culture, but that is exactly the point – Simeone has managed to get Atlético to play as if they were Eibar. As if they had nothing, and as if their lives depended on the next game, on the utter centrality of the next three points. Not only this, but Atlético can also adapt to any circumstances, come wind, rain or apocalypse. They play attractive enough football, but they’re no fancy dans. Simeone knew exactly what he was buying when he brought in the Croatian Mario Mandzukic, a ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ forward who fits the Atlético mould to perfection. It was a similarly wise decision to buy Antoine Griezmann, a deceptively hard-working and determined player whose sumptuous skills hide a steely determination and a massive football intelligence.

    In short – these and other players in the squad are not the sorts to be intimidated by a trip to Mordor – the northern Eibar mountains, where howling winds, lashing sleet and freezing temperatures had turned the pitch into a mud bath – a veritable scene from the sepia days of football. Even Simeone wore a bobble-hat. The last time Atlético had played in Ipurua was in 2002, when both sides were in Segunda ‘A’. Curiously enough, current Eibar boss Gaizka Garitano was playing for the club that day (Atlético won 3-0), Luis Aragones was Atlético’s coach, and a 17 year-old Fernando Torres was up front. Fourteen years later, Garitano and Torres were back on the anniversary of the death of Aragones.

    After 25 minutes, Atlético were 3-0 up, Griezmann starting the rout after seven minutes, and Mandzukic scoring the next two. It was muddy, it was wet, it was hostile and freezing, but Atlético simply adapted better to conditions that appeared to suit their hosts to perfection. It was impressive stuff, and it sent out various messages. Real Madrid won 4-0 in Ipurua in November on a dry evening and a playable pitch. It would have been interesting to see how they or Barcelona would have coped with this pitch. The game ended 3-1, Atlético content to kill the game in the second half, although Eibar didn’t play badly. They just came up against a tougher side – and all that without Arda Turan, Juanfran or Miranda. What is Simeone’s secret? Well, there is none. What he is confirming – and it’s not as easy as it looks – is that a successful coach brings in the players who he knows will respond to the parameters he sets. If he sticks to them, and so do his charges, it’s a powerful formula. They haven’t conceded the title just yet.

    Diego Simeone and Carlo Ancelotti go head to head in the Madrid derby this weekend as Atletico take on Real.

    So, with their morale restored after the Copa del Rey exit, next weekend Atlético host their neighbours Real Madrid in what could prove to be a decisive turning-point in the season. The leaders strolled to a 4-1 home win over a bland Real Sociedad, who had nevertheless taken the lead in the first minute. Real Madrid have now conceded in the first minute of their last four games. This may be some kind of record, and they’ll be wary of the run continuing should Fernando Torres start next Saturday. Barcelona, who won a tough home match to Villarreal 3-2, also have an awkward-looking visit to Athletic Bilbao, a team not enjoying the best of times but who relish the visits of glamorous opponents. Sevilla squeezed past Espanyol for the second time in a week and might fancy their chances at Getafe, to take advantage of any slip-ups above them. It’s going to be an interesting weekend coming up.

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