On January 7, Diego Pablo Simeone turns 10 on the Atlético de Madrid bench. Something unusual in world football. That day in 2012 he directed his first game, although his signing was announced on the previous December 23. In large part, this unique feat of continuity in European football is due to El Cholo being unpredictable. That attitude may be the least advisable for a coach. Taking a bench requires order even not to show your cards. But in Simeone's unpredictability there is a deep logic that moves away from the manuals.
Let's remember when Atleti won the last league, in Valladolid. The foreseeable in these cases, what we all expect on the other side of the screens or that the microphones tell us with the hysterical antics of sports journalists; what we have to do, in short, is to cry. That paradigm of the alpha male that is in our times the footballer becomes fragile precisely because he bathes in tears when he wins. Well, within that unpredictable logic with which he, at age 51, has been surprising us all his life, he began to laugh. It was the most authentic image of happiness, the most categorical and festive, although we have become accustomed to the opposite, one does not really know why ...
“As a coach, I never stood still, I always sought to improve.
Comfort produces interior noise, "says Simeone, who is wearing a Dolce & Gabbana suit and a Ralph Lauren shirt in this photograph. Gonzalo Machado
“What I did was what I felt.
If you ask me: 'What are you laughing at?', I don't know, maybe it was because we did it again, it's the first thing that comes to me.
You go through a lot of obstacles to get there.
We are not afraid, we continue to grow even when many people do not believe, when strong criticism appears ”, says the Argentine, nonconformist as he is and committed to a constant challenge to conventions.
With this he also achieved something unpredictable 10 years ago at Atlético: that they did not have to go through cycles of more than a decade to win the League. With Diego Simeone on the bench there are eight titles: two Leagues, two Europa League, a Copa del Rey, two European Super Cups, one from Spain ... achieve leagues. What made me the happiest was the quest we undertook to win it again. A joint achievement of the leaders, the workers of the club, the people who began to mark the way back in 2012; they were the first to make us believe that it was possible to compete and fuel the dynamics of winning ”, he explains.
A philosophy of transversal contagion has had a lot to do with this: from the office to the field. From the decisions of the club's owner, Miguel Ángel Gil Marín and its president, Enrique Cerezo, to the dressing room. “I have a very good relationship with them, we always gave each other a lot, all the growth is due to what we did in the field and they were abroad. Not to mention the footballers who want to come to Atlético de Madrid today ”.
While El Cholo laughed that day of the league triumph, on the other side of the field Luis Suárez cried. But something in that crying hid an unknown: the taste of revenge towards the club that let him go. "Luis is pride, rebellion," says Simeone. For the player, Simeone is a coach capable of convincing: “The Vatican sells you. He listens and knows what each one of us needs in difficult moments ”, Suárez has declared repeatedly. When Koeman and Barça discarded him, Simeone smelled that the instinct of that humiliation would multiply the lethal effects of the forward. What he later called "the Suarez area." He said it publicly a few days before winning. It was a message addressed to him, to that pride, to that unclosed wound. “When they told me that they were thinking of bringing it they consulted me. Was not necessary to.He came to promote a team aimed at something important. I had the courage to say it when I was going through a crisis. But he reacted: he came to show that it is in force. We needed that forcefulness ”, he assures.
"In the stadium, if people see intensity, they get excited, they get excited. We have to get the stands to help us," says Simeone, Atlético de Madrid coach for a decade. He wears a wool polo shirt and pants from Zara Origins.Gonzalo Machado
The same goes for another lost figure: Antoine Griezmann. A prodigal son who has decided to return to Simeone's bosom. They all know that it is with him that they become better players, that he presses keys to lead them to places that they perhaps did not know they could reach. This is how it has been with Diego Costa, with Griezmann, with Carrasco… “In the case of Antoine, his departure from the club, I think, was not felt. He always wanted to go back. I know he's going to do it big. He has character, quality, he is noble, a great companion, he works for the team and a small detail: let's not forget that he is a world champion… ”.
And the fans? That flammable emotional boiler that is the follower of the team and that is inflexible at home at the slightest failure, will it let you go back to what you were? “The fans were hurt by his departure because they wanted him… The fans are fair, they give you love, but they need you to give it back, and when you don't, they get angry. It is simple, it is not very difficult ”. Simeone knows what he's talking about: “I've known all the stages, as a player when Calderón got tough and Wanda too. It rumbles, it gives everything ”.
The old stadium was compact. The new one has needed its cooking time, out there. “The energy is caused by the team; If the team does not transmit it, bad. If people see intensity, they get excited, they get excited. We have to cause the stands to help us. The Wanda needed time, but in three months going to the same place, letting the sense of belonging settle, it evolves. It has incorporated what the Calderón had, but in a larger dimension ”.
It seems that this season the fans will have to arm themselves with patience given the latest results in the League.
Although it is the difficulties that motivate Simeone the most.
“As a coach, I never stood still, I always sought to improve.
Comfort makes me noise inside.
I do not tolerate it, it betrays you when you accept it, so I mobilize ”.
It is the obstacle that makes you happy.
“It sparks more ideas.
A complex situation appears and it gives me adrenaline.
I prefer the difficulty of responsibility and the weight that we are having generates more responsibility… ”.
What does it mean?
“That I was happier before, I enjoyed the victory.
Now I only feel relief, but not happiness. "
The coach's hands.
One of the keys to his success at Atlético has been the collaboration between the management and the dressing room.Gonzalo Machado
Happiness is found at home, as he comments and as can be seen in Simeone: Live Game by Game, the six-part documentary series that Amazon will premiere on January 26 about the coach. "Personally, I have evolved: I have created a new family, over 50, which is already a situation for man ...". And he owes the key to that happiness to his wife, Carla Pereyra, and to his children: the three he had in his previous marriage to Carolina Baldini, all boys - and footballers: Giovanni, Gianluca and Giuliano - and now the two girls who grow up with them two in Madrid: Francesca, five years old, and Valentina, two years old.
"We met here in Madrid and time passes very quickly ...", she affirms as her husband finishes the photo session. How does he balance that energy that we see him on the field, delimited in the area allowed to the coach? "Yes, I know what you mean: like a caged beast," replied Pereyra. “No, nothing to do with it, you couldn't sustain that waste at home. But energy has. There are times when I don't know where he got it from ”.
What is striking - again the unpredictable - is that all this torrent flows from a wise and calm personality.
"With a zen touch, that goes beyond", says Pereyra.
“He thinks of everyone, he anticipates situations.
That energy drags you.
It is always positive.
Faced with a bad situation, he does not get angry, he simply knows that he has more to do.
It's not that he's happy, but he doesn't take it with anyone ”.
In the end, his attitude is contagious.
“I am very positive too, but the one who is exposed is him.
They are judging you all the time and in the end you judge yourself first.
Its his way of being.
Perhaps success has led him to where he is.
It pushes you to be better ”, concludes Pereyra.
In the 2021 season, the coach regained the title.
In the photograph, Correa is hugged, in Valladolid on May 22, Ballesteros (Efe)
If there is something that El Cholo hates, it is lies. “I hate her, I hate her”, says the coach: “They are few letters and it does a lot of damage. There is no objection to lying, trust does not return. Not the same. Like everyone in life, they lied to me. It's what I hate the most ”. Before that it has a detector. “My sensitivity makes me perceive when someone is lying to me. Later, that the person wants to see it is another thing. It's better to blush and make it hurt for a while, but tell the truth ”.
That attitude is transmitted: “I am distrustful, possibly life gives you blows that make you more distrustful, but I give. I always tell my children: in life you have to give; then, if they don't give you back, it's the other person's problem, not yours. " This is the code of a person who exudes nobility and who does not want to hide that virtue because he perseveres in it: "I have a lot of nobility, that's for sure," he says. And that nobility has always paid off. “It is straight and correct towards people: what you see. He does not think one way and act another. He wants to live calmly, and that makes him not feel guilty ", adds Carla Pereyra, without him listening to how she defines him:" He is serene and very balanced, I think he is at peace. Even if he sees him very overwhelmed, he is always aware of who has a bad time.He has a lot of people on his mind and he's authentic in showing his emotions. "
His daughters contribute a great deal to that. "I'm lucky," confesses the coach. “I had three children and now two girls. The games are different: they demand much more attention from you, more creativity, they demand that you be. You give the boy a ball and he has another way of meeting his father. The girls need you to be sitting there ”. But attentive to everything. Without losing rope. "I don't know who I was with the other day and at one point I said: 'Soccer is my life!' On the other side of the room was my daughter Francesca, like her things, but suddenly she blurted out: 'Dad, soccer is not your life. We are your life ”. Marking space ...
“I was happier before when I enjoyed the victory;
now I feel only relief, but not happiness, "says Diego Pablo Simeone.
In the image, he wears a coat by Yves Saint Laurent and a high-neck sweater by Loro Piana.Gonzalo Machado
The first thing, therefore, are the children, the family.
Also his parents, Carlos and Nilda, who follow game by game, you know, the coach's path.
He talks to them almost every day.
His father calls after each meeting: “His criticism grows, he is more impatient too.
That allows us to continually get closer.
But, if we lose, I don't call him.
From my old man I inherited a distant character, they criticize me many times because I speak little.
I try to listen: listening makes less mistakes than speaking ”.
The demand is clear where it comes from: from his father, a salesman in the Palermo Viejo neighborhood, where the family of Italians who are his ancestors went, with a grandmother who marked him: “She was tough, Genoese.
The ball would puncture me if we broke the plants ”.
But all that was tempered by Doña Nilda, her mother, a hairdresser: “She was marking my personality.
Very noble, very good ”.
Childhood, the neighborhood ... It is not forgotten.
“I came back a few months ago for the documentary.
The neighborhood is the neighborhood.
Look how I talk, in everything I do there is that neighborhood kid.
It was a wonderful place: all cobblestones, so the ball didn't roll well;
We played from tree to tree, cars went in between;
the ball never hit correctly, that's how you learn the technique, I have no doubt ”.
Of that boy remains the memory of tenacity. “I was always a boy that I loved, in the minor categories they made me captain; In futsal, in youth, in the national team, they obviously saw a different personality in me. Neither better nor worse. Different He who adores himself liking himself and believing himself a leader is going badly; It was my turn, but they chose me. Leadership is given to you by others ”.
That idea was reinforced when a music teacher appointed him to lead an orchestra of older boys. “You saw that you are in that situation with the stick, right? Like the orchestral capos. I wonder why the teacher made me direct 20 12-year-old kids when I was 8. Tell me what the guy saw… ”. It may be that in that trance he discovered the gift of charisma that defines a conductor and also a coach. A quality that is transmitted in two ways: towards the musicians or, where appropriate, the players. And towards the stands. He raises his hands every game to level the crescendo when he needs cheering. He says he doesn't consciously think about it. In his case, it is clear that he learned it as a child and it comes out mechanically: “I do what I feel, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Several, too, forced: that's what I get.I seek to transmit to the team the energy of those who go to the stadium, they would have liked to be a footballer and I breathe it upwards ”.
In one year on the Atlético de Madrid bench, Simeone won three titles: the Europa League, the European Super Cup and the Copa del Rey. A year later, the League. In the photo, May 17, 2014, the players celebrate that title at the Camp Nou.Alex Livesey (Getty Images)
The incredible thing in his case is that it does not decline. "He has a lot of balls, and I like people like that," Cristiano Ronaldo defines him in the Amazon documentary. "The history of his club has changed," adds Sergio Ramos. Two adversaries who agree with the opinion of the president of Atlético de Madrid. "The energy does not decay in him because it is inexhaustible, it is that of the winner," says Enrique Cerezo. "And it has been that way since he played and put the team on his back," he says in reference to when Simeone wore the red-and-white shirt, between 1994 and 1997, and again between 2003 and 2005, before his return to Argentina, where He retired in 2006, 18 years after his debut on the field, at Racing de Avellaneda. Cerezo knows that Simeone has contributed in a fundamental way to changing the mentality of the club: “If before we went out with the attitude of winning but let's see what would happen,Today we leave with a radical intention in that regard. Winning and nothing else to win ”.
That combustion does not stop. Although many still wonder where all that gale comes from, which in 10 years has achieved 8 more titles to add to the list of 12 that he already had as a player, 5 of which were achieved with the Argentine jersey. "He died on the pitch, he was contagious," says Leo Messi in the documentary. Perhaps that energy has a stoic attitude towards his position: “I still think they can kick me out tomorrow. It is the only reality and truth of this game. This project is supported by winning. The best thing we have done in these years is always seek to reinvent ourselves. That mentality is already installed, it is up to us to sustain it, ”says Simeone. But putting up with self-demand is it exhausting? “I always wonder why Barcelona, Real Madrid always go out to win. Why can't we do the same?With the difference that those clubs are changing their benches and he is still there, a decade later. “If I stop to think what it costs, the day I don't find the necessary strength, I will have to go. Why? Because it won't be me… I won't do the club any good ”.
He will decide the day he wants to go out the door, confirms Cerezo: "That is clear, when he wants."
He was only close on the day he lost the second Champions League final against Real Madrid.
They were tense days, recalls Carla Pereyra.
"I need to think," El Cholo confessed after the hit.
Alarm!
“So I said to myself: 'How do I convince them again?
I must go down to the locker room, appear where everyone is waiting for you with the open knife. '
I go out and tell what came out: I needed to think.
Carla and I left for Milan, in pain.
But it is not the family's fault that you win one game or another ”.
“Since I met Carla and my daughters were born, I have felt like a beast.
A bull, with a renewed balance ”, says the trainer, here wearing a Yves Saint Laurent coat and a cashmere turtleneck by Loro Piana.Gonzalo Machado
"It was very tough," recalls Pereyra. “When we went to Italy after the final, it was bad. We arrived and it was raining. But the same thing happened, in two days he gave the space to that duel, received offers from other teams and decided: I can't go ”. It was a moment of doubt, no break, insists Simeone: “Many times there is a void that appears in big defeats, you get unaccustomed to the blow when you usually win. Also, if you don't see yourself represented on the team, something causes you to move. I don't have bankruptcies, but in the same way that one celebrates winning, one has to give it space when losing, because if you don't forget the feeling of celebrating the triumph. Nor am I talking about knowing how to lose, that word is very rare ”.
He prefers, in these trances, to redouble his will. “Will, yes. It's a great concept. It doesn't transfer whether you have it or not. I am willful. I train every day for myself. I want to look good, I care that they see me well and possibly it is a stimulus for others to perceive it that way, that the training goes as well as possible to go to my house and say: 'Wow, this is what I like! ”. Exercise also serves as therapy and avoids stress at home. "When Carla sees me histrionic or hysterical, she tells me: 'Why don't you go train for a little while?" Says Simeone. "I send him to run," she certifies.
Everything about him is demanding: both in his work and in love and complicity with his partner.
“I am more and more convinced that this is the way: the demand.
We all need to be demanded;
when not, we are dead, you do not arrive.
Carla, for example, provokes me.
It makes me better, since I've known her, I'm better, she won't let me stay in the place where three friends lived together in a house.
The problem is when you do not accept the demands of those who love you ”.
El Cholo celebrates a goal as an Atlético player in a match against Real Sociedad on October 30, 2003.Víctor Fraile (Reuters)
Thus, both redouble another concept linked to effort, however paradoxical it may be: pleasure. “It's a weird word. Sacrifice generates pleasure, which costs to feel it. What gives me pleasure? To win. But also a meal with my friends, the two of us go on a trip, see the girls and my children happy, it gives me pleasure. When I feel that the people I love enjoy. Check that my players prosper and overcome their difficulties. The bodies speak, when I perceive that the bodies within the field transmit that energy that I would like to inject, it gives me pleasure ”.
It has cost him little sacrifice to redound in everything that brings him joy. Even in that we can see that he is generous. He transmits almost as much the happiness of others as his own in full maturity: “We grew up as a family, we built friendships, and all that feeds, feeds that person; I feel good, happy, with new things. Since I met Carla and my daughters were born, I have felt like a beast. A bull. All these things generate a state in the person, a balance that allows to renew that energy ”.
Even if those goals cause you remorse from time to time.
“It's hard to disconnect.
We risk our lives in every game.
It's nice, but to keep what we do, I tell her, you have to be selfish, sadly that's the way it is.
It may not always be good, but to generate what we have at home, the key is not to decay.
I like to occupy the place that I occupy and to hold it you have to press ”.
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