That Simeone is a superstitious coach is well known after almost ten years of adventure on the Atlético bench. The technician has his quirks and Guilherme Siqueira, who knows him well from his stay in the team between 2014 and 2016, related some of them in an interview in ESPN Brazil. The left-back confessed that some of Cholo’s cabal left him with his mouth open.
“It is the most superstitious coaching staff I have seen in the history of football, I have never seen anything like it. We had a protocol when leaving the hotel, on the bus and until the moment of the game “, Siqueira began to narrate, giving some examples:”On the bus the same music list had to always play. Also in the locker room. When we came back from warm-up, Simeone was always hitting a ball with his hand against the ground and before doing the circle, he gave the ball to the captain, the captain did the same And that’s how it had to be, I couldn’t change … It took me a while to assimilate, when I arrived I was only looking at what I could and what I couldn’t … “.
Siqueira remembers a specific anecdote about Simeone: “There was everything in the playlist. Reggaeton, Spanish, Latin music, but it was always the same pen drive. Y woe to anyone who would like to change the music. One day the sound stopped and Simeone went crazy, it seemed that it was already 1-0 against and he was screaming ‘put the music!’ I said ‘calm down, we are the ones who go out to the field’ … “.
“There is an idolatry for him at Atlético”
However, for the Brazilian Simeone he is a coach who has more than earned the respect of the Atlético fans and the world of football: “Of course the results count a lot for the continuity or not of the technician, logically there is an idolatry for everything he has done, an acknowledgment. But of course it goes season by season and if the results are not achieved, even this year there was some doubt with Cholo for the Champions League. The pressure is always there, even more so when the level rises. But with the link it has with the club, dealing with its continuity will be something well thought out and not a simple ‘I want to go’ or ‘you are out’. It has a weight within the club, not only for the results, but also there is an idolatry for what he has done at Atlético “.