Candy reduction for Simeone as Atlético win amid doubts about evolution | La Liga

Happiness was this as soon as; now there may be solely reduction however it's one thing. Actually, for a short time on Saturday night time, it looks like every little thing. On the finish of every recreation when the ultimate whistle goes, so does Diego Simeone: sprinting down the tunnel and straight up the steps, not a phrase to anybody and never outrun by anybody both, no stopping and no wanting again. This time, although, is completely different. Juan Martínez Munuera brings Atlético Madrid's 2-0 win over Villarreal to an in depth slightly earlier than 11pm, 63,312 followers erupting; slightly after 11pm, on the prime of the steps underneath the stand the place the fourth official awaits his colleagues and the guests trudge previous tearing off tape and turning proper, there's nonetheless no Simeone.

Often the primary by way of, not even slowing right here as soon as he's safely out of sight of supporters and cameras, a determine in a thin black swimsuit dashing previous a pair of safety guards, down the hall to the left and into an empty dressing room, this time Atlético's supervisor is exterior underneath the lights as a substitute. He heads on to the pitch, embracing his gamers. He screams at Koke, his captain, crushing him with a cuddle. Pulls Antoine Griezmann shut and whispers one thing in his ear, solely he has to shout to be heard over the noise. Excessive fives his son Giuliano, who can be considered one of his wingers. After which joins the remainder of them celebrating earlier than the south stand, communion full.

“This was not simply one other recreation,” he says later.

Perhaps it ought to have been – it's only week 4 of his fifteenth season, the 743rd recreation since he took over with a 0-0 draw at Málaga two days after Christmas 2011 – however Simeone is correct. He had wanted this, all of them had. Three video games in, Atlético had not received. Crushed on the opening weekend, they got here into Saturday's match with solely two factors and go into the weekend seventeenth, having slipped seven factors behind Actual Madrid and 5 behind Barcelona earlier than August is over. It's no quirk of a merciless fixture record both: that's subsequent. They've performed Espanyol, Elche and Alavés. Developing are six video games in 17 days, together with Liverpool and Actual Madrid, beginning with unbeaten Villarreal, who they've solely defeated as soon as in 5 dwelling video games.

It's, one paper says, a closing. Which admittedly they are saying nearly each recreation, even literal quarter-finals, semi-finals and meaningless group video games, however nonetheless. Lose and the league has gone, most agree, and it's not even actually that; it's one thing deeper. There may be, Simeone admits, an “anxiousness” concerning the place, a rigidity, that goes past simply the outcomes even whereas finally it's all about that – particularly for him. He has began to really feel the stress, if began is the phrase, weighed down over a managerial spell that's three weeks away from being the longest in Spain's historical past, a sufferer in a part of the transformation he introduced, a way of getting begun one thing which may have left him behind.

A sufferer of one thing actually, issues not the identical as they as soon as have been. “After I got here I used to be blissful,” Simeone informed Cope radio station in an interview 5 days earlier than Saturday's recreation. “I used to be blissful once we received. At the moment, successful is a reduction, you perceive? A reduction. And I don't like that. However that's the duty I've.” There was reflection but additionally, he added, a actuality – and proper now that's not what it's imagined to be. Atlético spent €173m on eight gamers this summer season. Solely Actual Madrid spent extra. Add final season's €188m outlay, and it's greater than €360m in two summers. Over the past 5 years, the overall is above €500m. Nobody in Spain has spent extra. And whereas the web spend is completely different – Madrid lead there – that comes with calls for, as does being Spain's best-paid coach.

“We've got constructed a workforce that allows us to dream,” the membership's CEO, Miguel Ángel Gil, insists. Whether or not that's truly true is debatable: eight got here on this summer season however eight went out too; Koke and Antoine Griezmann are 33 and 34 now, in concept getting phased out, nearly unimaginable to actually exchange; and searching on the arrivals, ready to see how good Thiago Almada and Álex Baena will be, it's not so clear that the beginning XI is as robust because it was final 12 months, not to mention higher. Madrid and Barcelona, in the meantime, are nonetheless Madrid and Barcelona.

And but it's true that the outdated underdog discourse, which Simeone says he has dropped now, not stands up prefer it did, that the Robin Hood of soccer factor doesn't maintain. Simeone's success offered a platform for the expansion of the membership, securing 13 top-four finishes in a row at a membership that had solely two of them within the earlier 16 years, but additionally created a brand new regular, greater aspirations. Calls for are made, though some would argue not forcefully sufficient. Because the coach places it: “the workforce was forward of the membership, now the membership is forward of the workforce ”, and so they should catch up.

Nobody expects Atlético to win the league, their two titles actually outstanding achievements, however they're anticipated to compete for it. It's 5 years since they received something, a decade for the reason that Champions League closing, longer since they lifted the cup. Final season they received 15 league video games in a row, went prime … after which fell aside. Some pointed to that penalty; lots pointed to Simeone, insisting that if the membership has moved on, the coach has not. Neither is it nearly outcomes. There could also be no membership, Barcelona aside, the place the method they play occupies individuals as a lot because it does about Atlético. Each season it appears there's speak about how with these gamers, this funding, Atlético would possibly evolve just for them to evolve again once more, or so it goes. A round debate on type ensues, ebbing with outcomes however at all times there and partly primarily based on assumptions that don't actually maintain both, the identical outdated cliches and conversations on a loop, the identical arguments from the identical tribunes and the identical trenches.

Simeone hears all of them, after all. “What's ‘defensive'?” he requested this week; “we like pizza,” as an outdated line of his runs. This season these conversations got here early and Simeone stepped into the midst of it, the truth that he gave an surprising set-piece interview nearly as telling because the issues he truly stated. “It's a very good time to speak,” he started. “You shouldn't cover. You. Ought to. Not. Disguise. Let me make that clear.” What adopted was a name to arms to the individuals he says Atlético want, he wants, and to his gamers as effectively. There was a line about not wanting eulogies when he's gone however assist when he's nonetheless there. “We're alive,” he stated.

He acquired it too. Villarreal's go to was projected as a sort of plebiscite, and for all of the noise it was solely ever going to have one end result: on the day set as much as rejoice the supporters' golf equipment, music and large paellas exterior the Metropolitano, they have been on his facet. His title was chanted from the beginning and as he paraded the touchline he was conductor once more. On the pitch, his workforce responded too. Led by Koke and Griezmann – “I get emotional occupied with them; they're dwelling historical past of Atlético Madrid,” Simeone stated – they scored early, by way of Pablo Barrios. And though that was no assure having led in all three earlier video games, and whereas Alberto Moleiro had two great probabilities to attract Villarreal stage, this time Atlético did safe the win.

Nico González had arrived on Monday, Atlético's eighth signing lastly completed on deadline day, flown to hitch the Argentinian nationwide workforce on Tuesday, not come again till the next Thursday, and was offered on Friday. Now, having educated simply twice, he scored the second right here, all people in a position to breathe once more, the roof blown off. “I knew it will be good; however I didn't count on it to be this good,” he stated. “I don't know if it's a weight off, however we wanted three factors,” Barrios admitted. “Keep calm, it's simply the beginning,” Koke stated, which he might say now. “This felt like a referendum, however Simeone will sleep simple now; this win would possibly cease a number of the wildly exaggerated conclusions,” wrote former Atlético striker Kiko Narvaez. Nonetheless absurd they're nobody is solely impervious to all of it, the importance proven on the closing whistle when Simeone headed off in a distinct course to regular, in a position to let go underneath the lights and along with his individuals.

“I skilled the identical reduction I've skilled for a very long time, borne of the duty we really feel for the membership and the workforce,” Atlético Madrid's supervisor stated. “I assumed it was a very good time to benefit from the tiny little window we get earlier than tomorrow morning at 10am once we'll be again occupied with Liverpool.”