Diego Costa's hour

Gaining Simeone's trust is a challenge that very few players can claim to have met. But, once the Cholo praetorian guard is entered, the technician goes to death with them. This is what happens with Diego Costa, who since his return to Atlético has been alternating football and physical ups and downs, but has always appeared in eleven in the hottest games, something that is magnified in Champions and it seems that will happen again against Leipzig in the quarterfinals to a single match.

One ownership together with Marcos Llorente forming attack pair that comes caused by his good work after the break, where he has started in six of the ten games he has played (he lost the Vigo by sanction) and in which he got three goals and two assists (for a total of five goals and four assists this year), achieving with his auction to Betis a meritorious victory after playing with more than 40 minutes that certified the red and white classification for the next Champions.

Beyond that, Diego Costa was chosen in the eleven in games of maximum difficulty such as San Mamés, where scored the tying goal regaining his connection to Koke or at the Camp Nou, where he had worse luck with own goal and missed penalty that the VAR ordered to repeat for the attainment of Saúl's tie (in the second half the script would be repeated shooting the '8' the second penalty). Of his six titles after the break, five were away from home, Atlético's biggest challenge this year.

Juventus and Liverpool

But it has not been necessary for Diego Costa to have arrived in a state of optimal form for him to have started in a game of maximum draft. Last season Juventus visited Wanda Metropolitano in the first leg of the round of 16 and Simeone was surprising by betting on Costa in the starting team 80 days after his last time, with operation of a toe involved. The Spanish-Brazilian had only played 30 minutes against Rayo before the big date and entered the eleven to eat Bonucci and Chiellini. He lasted 58 minutes, where he wore down the Italian defense until leaving, replaced by Morata before the goals of Giménez and Godín to put the rojiblancos ahead. The downside was the yellow seen in the first half and that prevented him from playing the return where the Italians turned the tie around.

This same season, Costa underwent surgery for a cervical disc herniation, returning from his discharge. directly to play 13 minutes in the first leg of the round of 16 against Liverpool. Still convalescing and without picking up the pace, he could not even play against Villarreal and with only 49 more minutes on his legs between the match against Espanyol and Sevilla stood at Anfield to start against Liverpool, where his substitute, Marcos Llorente, would end up being the hero of the match.

Now, Leipzig and Lisbon appear on the horizon, where Costa arrives finer than ever. He knows about Cholo's trust and has a thorn in the European competition and in the Portuguese capital, after missing the second leg of the 2014 quarterfinals against Barcelona due to injury and enduring only eight minutes on the pitch in the Lisbon final against Real Madrid for having been injured on the last league game against the Blaugrana team itself, a capital change in the end for White's victory in overtime.

Diego Costa has a contract until June of the year 2021 and apparently will complete his last season at the Atletico club, although an interesting offer for the striker and Atlético would be carefully studied. The tip of Lagarto wants to leave Atleti in style, knows that his time has come and that, if he is physically well, the highest level matches are his, as he demonstrated in the Copa del Rey final in 2013 and in the semifinals of the 2014 Champions League or its second stage in the semifinals of the 2018 Europa League or in the European Super Cup of that same year. “To die, mine die” Simeone declared in 2017 and Costa is one of them, it will not be him who is daunted by the next great challenge.