"El Cholo" Simeone has become in his own right one of the great coaches in his history and he has done it fairly and with all due merit. He will surely end his rojiblanco journey as one of the most successful. I think there is no doubt about it.
But at the same time that this is recognized and valued, as in football nobody has a bull and even less in the elite, doubts and questions begin to arise, especially about whether the team and the institution will be able to maintain the level required up there and about if the manners of their coach and players and, especially, the type of football they play will meet the expectations raised and the demands of their fans.
As a club, the colchoneros, after having suffered the gale of the Gil y Gil in this stage of triumphs, has collected the antipathies that Real Madrid has raised with its greatness, money and arrogance and Barça with the excesses of "tiki-taka" and the "philosophy" of Guariolazen and have turned them into sympathy and support in his favor, supported by a victimhood created by marketing and advertising and the titles achieved in this fruitful stage, above all.
The style and type of football that Simeone has successfully transmitted to his team and that his players follow with enthusiasm and warrior ardor has pillars that are indisputable, such as a maximum competitive attitude whoever the rival is, especially if they are big and if it is Real Madrid much better, an excellent defensive approach with two central defenders who rarely fail, making the most of set pieces and excellent strikers for finishing and scoring. Always prepared for the battle and the anger, their players do not reach the "step on it, step on it", but if necessary, they are there. I think that with this background it will be difficult for them to compete with the best in Europe and even more so continue to win titles. The fan, so identified with his coach, at the moment is enthusiastic about the idea of continuing to upset the meringues but we'll see, this is very long and the competition is great and for demanding it will not stay, for sure.
Simeone and the club must be careful with his ways in managing the team and his attitude as a coach in games. His "performance" in the Cup final was deplorable in every way. I don't think anyone thinks as Simeone said that "it had been the result of the anxiety of the first days", I think rather that it is his style, his DNA, he was as a player (that entrance to Julen Guerrero!) and it is as a coach. That is what he transmits and with what he mentalizes his players to the maximum, tuning in like no one else with the mattress stand, which at the moment is enjoying the honeys of victory. But, at a time and in a social moment in which forms are taken care of to the point of stupidity and banality, also in football and the dictation of the most televised image possible, you have to be careful and be "correct" and Simeone does not it was.
What's more, it was a treaty of sporting and footballing inaccuracies and although until now that style has been very profitable, it could be that it began to turn against him and his team. It is no coincidence that in the last two titles played he has been expelled and left a bad taste in his mouth at the end of the transcendental matches…..what a coincidence!…. the two against their eternal rival.
As a summary, I leave two questions for the kind reader who reads these lines:
Would you pay a ticket to see At Madrid play if you are not a mattress player?
Do you think that the football practiced by those from Manzanares is measured with the same yardstick as other greats? And if so, why?
We leave those answers for another day.
Author: Eduardo Silva
