Sid LoweSpain Writer5:28 AM ET9 Minute Read
Could Saturday be Diego Simeone’s last Madrid derby as Atletico coach? Berengui/DeFodi Images via Getty Images
Into the fight again? Saturday night will be the 39th time coach Diego Simeone has led Atletico Madrid into a derby against Real Madrid – the 40th if you count the day they scored seven goals in a friendly in New York, which Atleticos does, not least because it involves these two, there is no such thing as a friendly.
It could also be the last and final step. Exactly one month ago at the Santiago Bernabeu, with Simeone’s team defeated and eliminated from the Copa del Rey, Atletico’s season effectively ended prematurely. After that, he said he’ll come until June, then sit down with the club and see “what suits everyone”.
This may not be goodbye yet, but it feels as close as it gets. In less than a decade, the idea of Simeone’s departure has been publicly entertained and embraced. Doubts about his future, debates about the direction he and the club have taken, surface from time to time. The ending was explained just before, only to avoid coming; Reports have even claimed it was done and he was gone. Written off, he won a league title, his second. When he came, winning one was unthinkable. But looking back at those 11 – eleven! — Years ago, there was probably only one moment when it seemed plausible that the next season would start without him, and that was different.
That moment was in Milan. Atletico had just lost the 2016 Champions League final to Real Madrid on penalties. Simeone was a coach for 4½ years: since taking over a crisis club, Atlético had won the Europa League, the Copa del Rey, LaLiga and the Spanish Super Cup. They had reached two Champions League finals. They had been wildly and inexplicably successful. This is a club that had only won one trophy in the 16 years before arriving.
defeat but cut deep. Simeone was broken, empty. He said he didn’t know what to do, he had to think. He went away with his wife, leaving silence and terror in their wake. The thought of giving up was terrifying; finally he decided he would do it. “I felt like I didn’t have the strength to continue leading the team,” he later admitted. At the time, he said that he needed a “mourning period” first. During this time, people begged him to stay, fearing that if he left, the whole thing would collapse. The club’s sporting director and CEO flew to Buenos Aires to persuade him to stay.
– LIVE Stream: Madrid Derby, Saturday 12:30pm ET, ESPN+ (US Only)
It’s hard not to feel like they wouldn’t now; Instead, they would be happy if he decided to walk away. They would never say that, of course – certainly not publicly – but it would save them a difficult decision and, just as important, take responsibility for it. No one wants to be the one to end it, even if they think it would be best to end it; it’s an inertia born of the status he’s earned. It was unthinkable at the time that he would leave; now it does. Now it’s not their fault. Even those who are his defenders who would emotionally hold him forever have moments when they wonder.
Could it be better? Could they play differently? Could you leave now before it’s too late to avoid a more awkward ending that leads to a breakup rather than a goodbye? Could the wait divide them all even more as the fall gets faster and further and more painful? Has the club outgrown the man who made it grow in the first place? Did he create conditions that changed everything, a victim of his own success? They evolved; he has? Maybe someone else fits better now? In short, could it be time?
It was a long time. Simeone has been a coach since January 2012. Managers just don’t last that long; they never really did, and they certainly don’t anymore. He has officiated 611 games. He has been in charge for more than a decade; In the ten years before he took office, 11 men held the job. This weekend he meets his eighth Real Madrid coach: Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez, Zinedine Zidane, Julen Lopetegui, Santi Solari, Zidane again, Ancelotti again.
Ancelotti had played him 13 times in the first round in just two years, including the first-ever European Cup final between teams from the same city, in front of around 70,000 fans en route to Lisbon. No other game has been played. When he returned from stints at Bayern Munich, Napoli and Everton, Simeone was still waiting for him.
“What Simeone did at Atletico – build something important, make the club one of the best in Europe, fight every year, win titles and still do it in an impeccable way – is something that all coaches want,” said Ancelotti. “To be at a club for a long time, to leave your mark, your signature: that’s the dream of every coach.”
He had left his mark on them, too, sometimes literally. The derby was revived, if never quite mastered. Where Atlético stood then is difficult to assess, even if there are occasional hints, even if success might have made failure even more cruel.
It might seem strange to measure Simeone’s longevity against Real Madrid, but much of what his club is or was has been measured by Real Madrid. Atletico Madrid was a team defined in part by what it wasn’t: by the team across town. They liked to think they were everything Real wasn’t, a narrative they constructed. Which meant real, they claimed: real fans that make a good deal of noise. Which meant, well, successful. They, on the other hand, were el pupas, “the bewitched”. It was almost as if they had accepted defeat and built an identity on it. It wasn’t just that they didn’t win titles; it was that they couldn’t win derbies.
This is now known, but worth repeating, for known is one thing, but truly digested is another, fully grasping the full extent of her suffering. When Simeone took over, Atletico had last beat Real in 1999 – and that year they were relegated. Since returning to the top flight, they had not won a single game against their rivals.
They weren’t actually rivals, not in any way. Every time Atlético thought they were close, every time they thought they had a chance, they would screw up in an increasingly tragi-comic way. Or they would just be so awful that you wonder why they even bothered to show up. They didn’t have the slightest chance of winning.
Until one night they did. The run finally ended with Simeone after 14 years and 25 games.
In a Copa del Rey final.
In overtime.
At the Santiago Bernabeu.
Diego Simeone ended Atlético’s fruitless run against Real by guiding Los Rojiblancos to a Copa del Rey win over their Madrid rivals in 2013. JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images
Although they had already won a Europa League, that was all. This was the one, at least in part because of the opponents, because that spell was broken. There couldn’t be a better way to announce an arrival, to show how real this was, a new era. how big they got What Simeone had done, how he had completely revolutionized the club. And he did: It’s hard to imagine a coach who has made as much impact anywhere as he has. He, too, took on this identity and played with it: rebels fought against power, only he had a team that also won. His path: tooth and bloody nail.
A league title followed – perhaps the most meritorious in Spanish football history, not so far removed from the Leicester City case at the time as it might seem since – and a second Europa League. Two European Cup finals. They won another league title: a whole new team built for it, a colossal achievement.
And there were derbies to remember. An image sticks of fans lined up at the scoreboard at the Vicente Calderon and taking photos after Atletico beat Real Madrid 4-0. That was part of a seven-game run in which they didn’t lose to their city rivals. There was also a European Supercup win against them and a Copa del Rey success when even Fernando Torres, the biggest victim of those dark days, a boy who talked about going to school in his Atletico tracksuit every Monday morning, himself annoyed and then it also lived as a player, came back and finally scored against its rivals and defeated them.
But when it came to Europe, somehow the breakthrough never came, as if this were something else, a reminder of the old order that was never meant to be overthrown. Even though they now believed it could be, even though they had seen that they could compete and win. And of course it was hope that killed her. It’s strange to think how it feels like losing those two European finals to Real outweighs the leagues they’ve won. The manner is part of the explanation: the 1-0 lead to the equalizing goal after 92 minutes and 38 seconds before losing in overtime in 2014, followed by penalties in 2016, they had contested. Two contested European victories in a total of, huh, 70 seconds?
(Three even: a last-minute goal had cost them in 1974, which is when the Puppen name began.)
It’s not that easy to get rid of. Nothing ever makes it up to her, not when it goes against her. Not when revenge and redemption were repeatedly denied was that crushing inevitability always there. Four years in a row Real Atlético have thrown out of Europe; two finals, one semi-final, one quarter-final.
It hurt Atletico that they were complicit in Real’s rise, ended up helping their rivals and putting Barcelona and Bayern out of their way. The very last European night at the Calderon ended in a storm, Atletico supporters sang in the rain knowing it was over and holding onto the fight, the loyalty, the loss like they used to. They had indeed won, but they had been eliminated; Real would be European champions again. Somehow that summed her up.
After that defeat in Milan in 2016, despite the pain, the deep sense of loss and the need to mourn, Simeone didn’t leave, but something has changed. Or maybe ended. Although he still had many, many years ahead of him and huge titles to be won.
Juanfran, who missed the crucial penalty and hit the post, promised to be back in the final. But while they won a league, they wouldn’t come back. The Champions League moment is over. Real had prevailed again. Atletico have contested 18 derbies since then. They’ve competed but only won three: a European Supercup final, which went 2-1 at the Calderon when they were eliminated anyway, and an empty 1-0 in the league last year which didn’t really mean anything since Real was already champion.
Well, maybe for the last time under Simeone, they meet again. The status quo appears to have been restored, the league title is racing beyond that and nothing but the top 4 is at stake. There may not be much left to fight for except a worthy farewell to the game he revived. It can feel a little like the moment is over, the rebellion has run its course, like everything is back to how it used to be, those days that are all too easily pushed into the distance. Real have won seven of the last ten and lost just once.
The last time they met in the Copa del Rey a month ago it went to overtime, just like the last six singles games between these teams. There, after dominating, leading, missing opportunities and feeling robbed, Atletico fell like old times like nothing had changed. But, oh, it had. And if Simeone is eliminated here with his 40th derby, that should never be forgotten.