“If we are a team, we will quickly find the results,” he advanced Diego Simeone, the coach of
Atlético de Madrid
, before his first challenge against the Malaga, nine years ago, without thinking beyond the game by game, without intuiting that he would reach the 500 games that he completed this Wednesday.
That phrase dates from January 6, 2011. His first duel, in The
Rose garden, It was the next day, with a zero tie, of which there is no one left from the starting eleven in the current Athletic, but a footballer was waiting for his chance on the bench: a young man Koke
Resurrection, who today is the captain, the third player with the most games in the club's history and the one with the most Diego Simeone. The best scorer of this entire era is Antoine Griezmann, with 133.
It is the beginning of the rojiblanco story of the coach, who overflows with strength and vitality 500 games later, fulfilled in the triumph of this Saturday against the Getafe in the stadium Metropolitan Wanda (1-0), while insisting on a new way of winning, different from the one he proposed at the beginning, more possessive, more offensive, perhaps, but above all a winner, as is the coach's mentality.
“I'm very happy here,” he finished on Tuesday, before facing the Getafe. There are already 301 triumphs as Atlético's coach (60 percent of victories), with 118 draws, 81 defeats, 833 goals for and 364 against among all competitions, among the seven titles, in addition, that make him the coach most winner of Athletic, above Luis Aragones, which achieved six. He's the only one that still beats Simeone in number of games with the club: 611.
With the end still to be written – for now, he has a contract until 2022 and does not rule out going further – he has been the leader of the time with the most trophies of the 117 years of the club's life. The first was the League
Europe of Bucharest before him Athletic Club. The second the European Super Cup against him Chelsea, with Radamel Falcao as an undeniable scorer in both appointments, which unleashed a sensational era.
It was still 2012. It was still the first months of the coach, who later won the Copa del Rey at Santiago Bernabeu in 2013, the Spain Supercup in 2014, another Europa League and another European Super Cup In 2018, it brushed the competition of competitions twice in the Champions League (2014 and 2016) … And, above all, the League from 2013-14.
IRREBATIBLE TEST
Perhaps there is no more visible and irrefutable proof than such a fact, also closed in the Camp Nou and with an unmatched number of points in its history, 90, from the transformation of the team by the coach. It is the only team of the last decade that has managed to win the championship apart from Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Because in the curriculum of Simeone the titles, the triumphs, an incalculable amount of records for the eternity of the Athletic, but above all it has the merit of having worked the mutation of a team that neither recognized nor found – had lost it – the place that had always corresponded to it in history.
When I arrive Simeone, who never hid that his goal (or his destiny) when he chose to be a coach was one day Athletic and that he waited for his chance, the team had just been eliminated by a Second Division B of the Copa del Rey, but, beyond that, his future for the League was trompical, closer to relegation than to Europe, much closer to disappointment than to a minimal goal.
It wasn't just a matter of that first half of the season. True that in 2010 had won the Europa League and the European Super Cup, with Quique Sánchez as coach, as certain as that it had been a fleeting flash that was not used to consolidate it. Or like the last League dated from 1996. Same as last Cup. Or that it had descended to Second in the year 2000. Champions it was more punctual than usual: from 2000 to 2011 he entered three times.
With what it means as an economic engine from every imaginable perspective and as a sports incentive, Simeone it has stabilized him in that competition. He has played the eight most recent editions, including the current one. Not only that. They have only lost once in the group stage. And it has reached two finals, perhaps the last of 2016 the lowest moment of Simeone, when he fed the doubt of an unforeseen march, after the penalties that defeated him in San siro in the Champions League. 500 games later, it is his pending challenge.
THE NUMBERS OF SIMEONE'S 500 MATCHES AT THE ATLETI
================================================= =====
Competition PJ PG PE PP GF GC Titles
————————————————– ————
League 340 209 80 51 363 233 1 (2013-14)
Copa del Rey 49 26 13 10 98 46 1 (2012-13)
Spanish Super Cup 6 2 4 0 6 4 1 (2014)
Champions League 77 41 20 16 108 62
Europa League 26 21 1 4 50 16 2 (11-12 and 17-18)
European Super Cup 2 2 0 0 8 3 2 (2012 and 2018)
————————————————– ————–
TOTAL 500 301 118 81 833 364 7
————————————————– ————–