“Nobody remembers the second; losing two finals is a failure ”, resounding, hurt, disfigured, Diego Simeone He appeared on May 28, 2016 in the press room attached to the San Siro stadium in Milan, moments after the loss on penalties against Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League, without possible consolation; four years later, he once again insists on the top European competition, the only title he is missing.
In his eight and a half years at the helm of Athletic has won a League (2013-14), ahead of Barcelona and the Real Madrid, with all the merit that this fact entails, because no one else has achieved it in the last decade; a Copa del Rey (2013-14); a Spanish Super Cup (2014); two from Europe (2012, with that formidable exhibition against Chelsea, and 2018, with Real Madrid 2-4 in Latvia); and two European Leagues (2012 and 2018). Seven titles. More than any other rojiblanco manager in all of history.
He has also achieved an Apertura Tournament, with Estudiantes de La Plata in 2006, and a Clausura, with River Plate in 2008, in Argentina, as coach. And a Liga and a Copa del Rey, both in 1995-96, as Atlético's midfielder; a Serie A, a Cup, a Super Cup in Italy and another in Europe with Lazio; and a UEFA Cup in 1998 with Inter. Besides, as an Argentine international, he won two Copa América.
He has transformed Atlético from the bench. When he arrived as an emergency resource in December 2011, the crisis was undoubted in the team, separated from the Copa del Rey by a Second B, Albacete, and closer to the lower zone than to Europe. It was a club that was still looking for its place in the League. History said that it was the third position, but the reality of then relegated him to inconsequential places on the table.
He has qualified for the Champions League for eight consecutive seasons. It is not a minor data. Because only seven more teams have achieved it throughout this period from 2013-14 to the present, counting the next campaign: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Juventus, Paris Saint Germain and, at the expense of the next preview, perhaps Benfica. Nobody else.
And he has multiplied Atlético's budget with such sporting merits: the income forecast of the Madrid entity has grown by 297 percent with him as coach. From 129.8 million euros in 2011-12 to 515 this year. In the global of the seven participations so far in the Champions League, he has accumulated 419.8 million euros of income … But the essence of everything is missing, the culmination of all that process; the title of titles, the most precious of all current football.
It is the pending challenge. His and Atlético de Madrid, who also only has the European champion cup to add to his record, within a story that emphasizes the cruelty of the defeats suffered by the coach and / or the rojiblanco team; one minute twice from being the best on the continent – in 2014 in Lisbon and in 1974 in Brussels – and two penalties, the one he had to score and his opponent missed, in one, at San Siro in 2016.
FROM SCHWARZENBECK TO SAN SIRO PENALTIES
He Bayern Munich and Georg Schwarzenbeck they frustrated a sensational team 46 years ago, full of players who today are absolute legends of the club's history: Luis Aragonés, Adelardo Rodríguez, José Eulogio Gárate, José Luis Capón, Ramón ‘Cacho’ Heredia, Javier Irureta, Francisco Melo, Armando Ufarte, Ignacio Salcedo, Alberto, Miguel Reina…
From 1-1 in the last minute of extra time to the devastating tiebreaker the next day (4-0), with no option for the rojiblanco team, who did not return there until Simeone arrived on his bench to feel even closer than then, but also without the glory of the victor.
In 2014, because Sergio Ramos scored the equalizer on the verge of the end and caused an extension that was rather a punishment for an exhausted Atlético, aware that at 1-1 there was not only a draw but an invariable condemnation of defeat. And in 2016, surpassed in the first half by Real Madrid, with Sergio Ramos 1-0, and redone in the second, although he even failed Antoine Griezmann a penalty before 1-1 Yannick Carrasco, because he was not so accurate in the maximum penalty shootout.
There are nuances in both disappointments until those transcendental moments, debates on the how and why of some decisions of the coach, of some change or the doubt of why Atlético did not definitely go for the game, for example, in San Siro when he got the tie, but all conditioned by the most essential question of all, which does not allow discussion: the result. And the rojiblanco team lost both.
YOUR NUMBERS
But he maintains his insistence. Since Lisbon in 2014 and even more so since Milan in 2016, the Champions League is Atlético's strongest ambition. And of Simeone. The transition has not been easy until the final eight of this course. “The defeat of the Champions for me was like a death and every death needs a time of mourning,” he said in the summer of 2016, when he was already preparing the next exercise … And another round of the tournament.
In 2016-17 he stayed in the semifinals, eliminated by Real Madrid; in 2017-18 he did not even pass the group stage, surpassed in his quartet by Chelsea and Roma and eliminated because he failed in his two commitments with the modest Qarabag with two draws -then won the Europa League-; and in 2018-19 he was shipwrecked in the second leg of the round of 16 in Turin, where it devoured him Cristiano Ronaldo with an incontestable 3-0, much more even because of the impotence that he showed than because of the overwhelming score. In the first leg he won 2-0 at the Wanda Metropolitano.
Three years later he is back in the quarterfinals, before a new eight-final format due to the covid-19 pandemic, a single game and with the irrefutable certainty that Atlético can compete with anyone wherever. Has already shown it throughout the age Diego Simeone in the Champions League: in his 70 games in that competition, his team won 39, drew 16, lost 15 and scored more than twice as many goals, 103, of which he received 50, over seven campaigns.
There he has beaten 24 of his 25 rivals at least once in the top European competition, with one striking exception: the Qarabag. He has beaten the rest on occasion: Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Chelsea, Roma, Zenit, Olympiacos, Porto, Austria Vienna, Milan, Malmoe, Bayer Leverkusen, Galatasaray, Benfica, Astana, PSV Eindhoven, Rostov, Leicester, Monaco, Bruges, Dortmund and Lokomotiv.