Is Simeone the best coach in the history of Atlético?

Diego Simeone, the coach of Atlético de Madrid
, reinforced this Thursday his project and his commitment to the rojiblanco club with the renewal of his contract for two more years, until June 30, 2024, together with his current coaching staff, signed at the stadium Wanda Metropolitano and announced this afternoon by the club.

On the second day of the preseason, after months of conversations that led to the agreement between both parties, the expansion of his link with the Madrid entity, which he has directed for nine and a half years as a record technician, is already a fact. , for history, whose continuity is further sealed, with the Champions League as a pending challenge. The last limit.

His previous contract ended in 2022; The new one lasts until 2024, as does the nucleus of its coaching staff, according to the Madrid club on its website: they have also renewed Oscar Ortega, physical trainer; Paul
Vercellone, goalkeeper coach; Nelson
Alive, second technician, and Hernan Bonvicini, third coach.

At his service, a team designed and agreed upon by him, which transmits energy and growth, which he prepared in the 2019-20 academic year, always without departing from the inescapable premise of qualifying for the Champions League, to make the leap that he took last season to be the dominator of the League. The irrefutable champion.

“People get tired, sure, I have no doubt. He gets bored, he gets tired. But I'm stubborn, very stubborn. I know that the club can still continue to grow and hopefully we can help it to continue growing ”, he advanced on May 22, just after winning the League on Valladolid, with the 1-2 victory at the stadium New José Zorrilla, when he was asked about the contract extension which is a fact now.

EIGHT TROPHIES

It was the eighth trophy in nine years of a memorable era for him. Athletic, re-floated out of nowhere, from a lesser position, in December 2011, when the dismissal of Gregorio Manzano accelerated a foreseeable reunion, perhaps not so soon, but visualized by Simeone, who has been preparing since 2006 to be the rojiblanco coach, to be the legend that is now undoubtedly of the entity. From then to now, only the midfielder Koke
Resurrection sustains its rhythm. He is the only player who has followed since his arrival.

His eight titles (the Suspenders 2013-14 and 2020-21; the Copa del Rey 2012-13; the Suspenders
Europe 2011-12 and 2017-18; the European Super Cups 2012 and 2018 and the Spain Supercup 2014) no one equals them throughout the 117-year history of the entity, like so many other records that have launched it towards levels that not long ago, a decade ago, were perceived as more than impossible.

Nobody has won more than him in the rojiblanco team (on March 10 he surpassed the 308 victories that Luis Aragonés achieved and reduced them over time, with 98 games less than the 'Sabio de Hortaleza'), since his debut on 7 January 2012 with a 0-0 in The Rose Garden from Malaga, the origin of everything that has come after.

There are already 317 victories in the 527 meetings (60 percent) among all the competitions that the Athletic, with 124 draws, 86 defeats, 875 goals for his team and 388 against, all adorned by a number of marks that describe an indisputable coach in the history of the entity, qualified for the Champions League nonstop for nine years, with the record for matches directed by Lewis within reach. There are 612.

CALCULATIONS

In a calculation at an average of 50 games per year, with its renewal until 2024, with the three proposed seasons ahead, Diego
Simeone He will also surpass that legendary record, as long as the team's journey continues as it has been up to now, aware as the coach is that he lives off the results.

The only technician capable of winning the League to the Real Madrid and Barcelona in the last seventeen seasons, in addition on two occasions, it has also registered the best first round in the history of the Athletic (2013-14 and 2020-21), the club's highest score in the League (the 90 points with which he was champion in 2013-14), the best streak without losing (23 matches in a row) or the one with the most victories at home, with fourteen in 2013. The record dates from 1940.

“We know which is the way, although some still do not believe us, but they are the ones that make us better,” he said when he was proclaimed champion of his last League, within that style in which the team moves with him, revolutionizing the last course with a more offensive slope compared to the defensive priority for which it habitually moved in previous years, criticized for some blur by such approaches, especially in the Champions League, which is his pending subject. He has reached two finals, but has not won it. Neither does the Athletic throughout its history, like an obsession.

The 2016 final, when Atlético equaled Real Madrid with 1-1, but fell on penalties; the 3-0 defeat in that same tournament in the Santiago Bernabeu the following year, in the semifinals; the defeat suffered against him Juventus, 3-0, in the 2018-19 round of 16; or 0-1 against him Chelsea, the European champion, in the first leg of that same round last March, are the exponents of some fiasco, within the very high demand in which the Athletic and the technician, but they cannot be compared with their successes.

Simeone once again reinforces its commitment to the Athletic. And the Athletic, for him. To the sports stability of the coach's continuity and a solid project, on track for months, is added the economic one that the club pointed to with the capital increase approved last June of 181.8 million to mitigate the effects of the pandemic in the income of the entity.

Simeone it is also an economic value, because it has sportively dimensioned the club to a height and globality unthinkable ten years ago with the constant classification for the Champions League and because the Athletic He has increased his budget by 297 percent with the Argentine coach, from 129.8 million when he reached 515 in 2020-21.