“When the goal seems difficult to you, don’t change your goal …”

The form of Simeone’s Christmas greeting is always the same. Rectangular, torn white paper. With the same star, the same drawings. And yet it is always different. Your background. POrque your Christmas greetings are always accompanied by a message that tells a lot about the ambition of the coach and the message to his team. The one of this year 2021 is clear. “When the goal seems difficult to you, don’t change your goal; find a new way to get there.”

There are many times already in which the Argentine coach has alluded to the path of the Germans, the one you think about when you glimpse the Champions League, season by season. “Give it, give it, it ever falls.” One of the first was in an interview with Julio Maldonado Maldini in Movistar +. And that is the path he has been on for almost ten years at the rojiblanco club. A road full of paths and titles. With Cholo, the rojiblanco club has once again become part of the greatness of Europe. Without Cholo, everything was sawtooth, Champions on TV, Intertotos in summer.

The last few weeks haven’t been easy. And that is barely seven months since Atlético was proclaimed League champion for the second time with the Argentine. When he did it in 2014, it was 18 years since the rojiblanco club won it, the last time it had been in the twentieth century, 1996, with Cholo as a footballer. But despite this, the criticism raged on his head. The tie at Mestalla, two goals conceded at a discount. The defeat against Mallorca. The bad group stage in the Champions League. The doubts, the fears, the shadows. But the cholismo struck the table on the spot and on the day. Porto, in the game of all or nothing. The objective did not change. Only that road to get to him was only a little longer.