Simeone does not find Simeone

Direct Chronicle

Atlético's defeat against Levante (0-1) was their twelfth of the season.

Diego Pablo Simeone had never lost so many games in the same campaign since his landing at the club in December 2011. Nor had he had to assume and admit the bewilderment that consumes him because his attempt to recover the team from defensive solidity did not work for him. first time.

His slow walk and crestfallen at the end of the match with Levante and his sparse response in the press room betrayed a coach dejected by the crisis that surrounds his team and for which he cannot find a solution.

ATM Athletic

0

Oblak, Marcos Llorente, Reinildo Mandava (Renan Augusto, min. 77), Giménez, Savic, Koke (Vrsaljko, min. 64), Kondogbia, Lemar (Héctor Herrera, min. 77), De Paul (João Félix, min. 63 ), Correa and Matheus Cunha (Luis Suárez, min. 64)

LEV Raise

1

Daniel Cárdenas, Óscar Duarte, Son, Miramón, Martín Cáceres, Róber, Pepelu (Nikola Vukcevic, min. 88), Gonzalo Melero (Coke, min. 88), Enis Bardhi (Malsa, min. 61), Roger (Morales, min. . 67) and De Frutos (Dani Gómez, min. 67)

Goals

0-1 min.

53: Gonzalo Melero.

Referee

Jose Luis Munuera Montero

Yellow cards De Paul (min. 25), Pepelu (min. 69), Dani Gómez (min. 75), Miramón (min. 84), Savic (min. 84), Correa (min. 95) and Son (min. 95). 96)

In his analysis, Simeone admits that the continuous changes of systems and line-ups, 31 in 33 games, are not bearing the desired fruit and that this has ended up undermining the confidence of most of his players.

The ups and downs of footballers and drawings from one game to another, and even in the same match, have caused a mental blockage among the squad that the coach has not found a remedy for either.

Simeone is busy finding a way to reactivate a team that won the league six months ago and was reinforced by Griezmann, Cunha and De Paul.

This is his great concern to be able to straighten out a project in which it is essential to reach one of the four places that give access to the Champions League so that it has economic viability.

Distanced from Real Madrid and Sevilla, in 15 and 11 points,

The path to regaining mental and competitive strength through getting your message across again is not easy.

In the locker room there are players who report that the atmosphere is not the best and that the coach's ideas go on one side and those of some players on the other.

The attempts to unite and add supporters to the coach's cause by some heavyweights in the dugout such as Koke and Giménez also reveal these internal cracks.

The open fronts are various and delicate.

The mutual disenchantment between João Félix and Simeone is the most notorious.

The position of Marcos Llorente as a winger does not please the player or the leadership, who fear that he may also become disenchanted and force him to leave.

In that sense, Simeone was very sorry for Wass's injury,

signed in this winter market precisely so that Llorente could return to more advanced positions.

According to sources with access to the locker room, there are footballers who find it difficult to understand that when the eleven has been made up of players with good footing, the proposal has not been more daring to enhance those virtues.

Against this background, Simeone has not given a single sign of wanting to close his successful cycle at the end of the season.

He also has not found signs on the property that invite him to think that he will not be the one to decide when he will leave the club.

At Atlético they neither confirm nor deny that there is a clause in his contract, extended this summer until 2024 at a rate of 23 million euros net, that allows termination if the team does not qualify for the Champions League.

There are managers who do not hesitate when asked about the fact that there are players who are not with the Argentine coach.

"Those have a problem," they respond, implying that Simeone's continuity is not in question.

However, for the first time, names of potential replacements are beginning to appear.

Ernesto Valverde and Marcelino Garcia Toral,

Jurgen Klopp.

Sources close to the club assure that a hypothetical departure from Cholo Simeone would also entail that of the sports director, the Italian Andrea Berta.

The club is at a crossroads regarding the coach's future.

Not entering the Champions League would be the first time in 10 years that Simeone does not meet the main objective set for him at the beginning of the season.

But, how to fire the coach who has returned the entity to the first step of European football after winning two Leagues, two Europa Leagues, one Cup, and playing two Champions League finals?

How to end a coach, despite the fact that his departure would substantially lighten the wage bill, which is idolized by the majority of the fans and has given social stability to the leadership?

"I'm not asking for titles, just for the team to compete and if that doesn't happen one day we'll sit down and talk quietly," the top manager, Miguel Ángel Gil Marín, recently said.

to EL PAÍS on the occasion of Simeone's tenth anniversary as Atletico coach.

Never like in this course, the team has competed so badly.

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