Cholo has really reinvented himself. People who don’t watch Atleti matches still think they play the defensively dark arts oriented style that had from around 2013-2016.
Between 2017-2019 cholo realized he needed to play more attack oriented football because Atleti kept dropping points by drawing against mid table teams and thus couldn’t really challenge for the league. He had a major rebuild the year they sold Greizmann and Lucas Hernandez ( by buying Felipe, Hermoso, Lodi, Llorente and Felix) and won the league the year after. Rodri and Partey were supposed to be the double pivot of the future after Gabi’s retirement but they had low release clauses and left. He switched from the 442 which he was known for to a 532. He converted Koke to a holding midfielder, llorente to an attacking midfielder, and Lemar to a box to box midfielder.
Atleti has been defensively weak and offensively strong for several seasons. The time wasting and aggressive fouls have gone away too. They had 0 red cards in la liga when the won a coupon of seasons ago. Now they are one of the top scoring teams in Europe. The 3 central defenders are selected more for their offensive contribution than their defending.
The only real criticism is his failure to develop Joao Felix. However Felix had 2 good seasons but was just injury prone because he was getting beat up by La Liga defenders. Felix carried the team the first half of the season when they won la liga last. Felix didn’t pan out in the end because Greizmann came back and was just better with more work ethic. If you look at Felix with Barca now he is a hard worker who tracks back. He has become a better all around player. Greizmann was successful with France and Felix with Barca because they learned how to be better all around players because of Simeone.
Really informative comment, thank you. Don’t watch much La Liga and always curious to see how Atletico are doing along with Simeone.
Great , 3 more years of cheating , dangerous tackles , pathetic diving and asshole statements from Simeone. And if you can’t see how Atlético are worse than other major clubs for those things , you don’t know shit about football
Chelsea would pay him double
Perfect birthday present for Felix
Can’t imagine him at any other club now.
The day Simeone leaves Atleti will truly be the end of an era.
The job Simeone has done with Atlético is legendary, not surprised he keeps renewing
Feels like he’s just synonymous with Atletico at this point. Is he their best manager in history?
he will be there until they won a champions, or he dies
wichever comes first
Spare a thought for whoever has to succeed Simeone when he does decide to leave Atletico.
I wonder what whoever finally take his position at Atleti will think. “Big shoes to fill”, but those are kayak sized. Like replacing SAF.
If you think the replacement for Simeone needs to fill big shoes wait until you see the size of the cojones they need to have
He made Atletico a top3 team in Spain, also in the world for some years, he definitely is one of goat coaches.
athletico during our peak UCL era was a menace of a team it sometimes felt like only we could beat them in the UCL if we didn’t make the final against them twice they would probably have 2 UCL’s right now
*has a la liga team flair
*typed athletico
This does not compute lol
On our day, Atleti are truly one of the worst teams to meet in the Champions League. Just ask Liverpool.
No other manager in the world can offer us the stability that Cholo does, especially considering our incompetent board and the lack of investment in the transfer market.
Hopefully by the time his contract is up, Fernando Torres will be in line to overtake him. It’s just impossible to imagine anyone but Cholo being here at the moment, but eventually his time will come.
El Cholismo must go on
At this point, I don’t even remember any other manager of atletico madrid.
Man out there stealing a living. Keep on going king