“I was not interested in going out, I always said that I wanted to be here and I said it and it is true that in the press there was a lot of talk that I wanted to go out, that I did not make plans, about many things, but I was very clear about what what I wanted and what I want “. Héctor Herrera has related on ESPN how he lived the last window of the rojiblanco market. And it was so. So much so that he had Atlético and third parties in suspense until the last moment. The Mexican had arrived the previous summer from Porto with Felipe. Atlético, as almost always, had gone shopping in Portugal. They had been engaged to Herrera months before, when he was able to sign since he was free. Atlético came to Porto, Conceiçao's team was very similar on the green to the mattress style, and they took two basic pieces. But Herrera, already from the preseason, seemed to waver. It cost him a lot to enter and did not finish taking advantage of his assets as Simeone expected. The result was that it was put on the market. It all fitted.
A transfer had not been paid, so a transfer would leave an immediate capital gain. And everything was tried and Herrera refused everything. The Mexican understood that it was too early to pack his bags again, he thought he could give more and held on to his performance in some Champions League matches such as Juventus. “Simeone said that I was more adapted to what the team needed, to what the team wanted and I see that this is a matter of last year's work that little by little I got used to and adapting to what he asked for,” he says now.
But Atlético was determined to do without him and found the perfect play. As he explained that the mattress club was launching to get the loan of Lucas Torreira, a medium that Simeone had already had in his sights two years before and that now, in addition, had the backing of Luis Suárez.
The market closure was on the way and Atlético suffered a financial crisis. It had to be a measured move, an output and an equivalent input.
Everything was tried with Herrera. A return to Portugal (Oporto), although it was necessary to see how he was paid the clean 2.5 million per year, or even places where salary is not so much a problem for a consecrated player like him. Russia, for example, and Zenit. Intermediaries, agents, offers, but Herrera did not hesitate. Not even when Torreira set foot in Spain.
The pressure of Torreira's recognition.
The Uruguayan traveled for that medical examination, passed it, and left to wait for news. Atlético was trying to buy time, but that weekend before the market closed, Herrera's last response was devastating. The same one he had kept throughout the window. His obsession was showing himself at Atlético, he is not one of those who jump into a challenge accepted with enthusiasm. And Torreira? A, wait. His arrival was stopped at the last moment, just until Arsenal moved to Thomas almost at dawn. Atlético had negotiated for Torreira, but sources that do not belong to the club itself insist that from the beginning it was clear that interest in the Uruguayan was on the sidelines of Arteta having Thomas in his sights. Thus, Torreira, with or without recognition, was left stranded by Herrera's no. The shock from London was what was finally able to specify an agreed arrival of the charrúa, but which depended on the fulfillment of an asterisk. Torreira arrived thanks to the margin that Thomas opened in Atlético's accounts, a little more even. That was also what allowed the final push by Kondogbia. From Herrera's not blunt to a two for one. Market things.