Simeone's unique lane: “With him, or are you on the wheel or are you out”

The technician fails to connect with the new ones as he did in 2011 and Berta's relationship with the newcomers is questioned.

Eight years ago (and two months ago), on a glacial night in December 2011, more than one in the rojiblanco dressing room recognized that he could not help but cry. Atlético had just been vulgarly expelled from the Copa del Rey, after Albacete, a Second B team, took Vicente Calderón (0-1). Those tears were no small thing because they started from people like Miranda, Godin, Juanfran, Filipe, Gabi, Koke or even Falcao. None of them were able to find a solution for a team that was then discarded. It was the guillotine of Gregorio Manzano and the definitive impulse for the rojiblanco club to trust his luck to Diego Simeone.

Eight years and seven titles later, in the agitated fief of the Cultural Leonesa, Atlético fell back into that old trap that, unintentionally, led him to mutate in the giant that is now. Koke, the only survivor of the KO with Albacete, was in Madrid because of a muscle injury, which he relapsed during the 27 minutes he played in the Spanish Super Cup against Barça. The canterano, today captain, is one of the strongest pillars on which the Simeone creed has been sustained. He was the youngest of that praetorian guard of the Argentine Mr.

Saul, which settled later (2014), also internalized the message without questioning. In Leon, he wore the captain's bracelet and, as is the norm this season, he raised his voice again. “Emotionally they know what it is to play at Atlético”, his coach usually repeats every time he questions both Koke and Saul. Because they are now the most reliable roots to boost and transmit their ideas in the meantime newcomer.

That group that Simeone met in December 2011, inherited from an earlier time, grabbed his script with faith and righteousness. Everyone knew that compromise without cracks would be (and was) the perfect formula to conquer heaven. However, that message has been more complicated to inoculate in the DNA of many of the signings. Many, even, with more quality and potential than some of those found then. Read Nico Gaitan, Carrasco and actually, Lemar Or until Joao Felix.

Lemar, 'robotized'

«Lemar was seen as a good player casually at the beginning, when he did what he had been doing in Monaco. But as soon as he entered into the daily routine, the obligations and demands have robotic. That is why he plays with more fear of being wrong than with the freedom to create », sources that passed through the rojiblanco dressing room tell EL MUNDO.

Those same obligations that seem to have definitely condemned the French (they paid Monaco 70 million for 80% of their pass), have moved more than one away from the destination for which they had been claimed from Madrid. The fear of being replaced has been in many occasions one of the main reasons of some who have visited both the Calderón and the Metropolitan to change their habitual way of behaving on the field. They stopped being them.

Of the nearly 40 signings that have landed at Atlético since Simeone took over, in December 2011, only two have managed to make a quality leap to the team: Antoine Griezmann Y Jan Oblak. Perhaps three, seeing the benefits of Philip. Both the French striker and the Slovenian goalkeeper, who today serves as second captain, were recruited in the summer of 2014, with the hangover of the League conquered at the Camp Nou and the painful defeat in the Lisbon Champions final. The march of some foundations like Coast, Filipe (would return a year later) or Courtois forced to track the market with zeal. And those two figures have been determining in a great part of the rojiblancas victories during this period.

Question of confidence

Inside the club there are voices that also point to Andrea Berta. For some, the Italian sports director should have a more decisive role in caring for the new ones that, in the end, are patrimony of the club and some are devalued by their lack of empathy with that score on the grass. Sometimes it is simply a matter of trust and a figure is needed to help them recover it. Someone who is on top of the person every day and not just the player. That acclimatization process in which, for example, Joao Felix is ​​plunged.

«With the Cholo and the Prof Ortega, or are you at the wheel or are you out », they add the same sources to this newspaper. Because that special bond, which is still pending in this new Atlético, is what allowed Simeone to convince some of those boys who cried after the defeat against Albacete, that they were the best in their position.

Paradoxically, in just two weeks, the rojiblanco team has gone from touching with their fingers the first title of the season (the Spanish Super Cup) to star in the biggest blur in the eight years of service of the Cholo. It is not a simple fight with the opposing goal, despite the fact that in León, Atlético returned to wear the same blindness that has shown all season. “Perhaps the veterans are the most guilty for not knowing how to represent their partners in the proper way,” Saul lamented on the grass of the Kingdom of León, with the heat for his most blushing defeat with the red and white shirt.