2023-05-23 02:26:18
“Let them wear my black suit for eight months and then they will realize if it is so easy». With this challenge to the critics, to those who see that Atlético de Madrid “only” qualify for the Champions League as something minor, Simeone responded at the press conference after the victory against Osasuna.
“Back in November a doctor told us that we were almost dead,” recalled Cholo, who I was vindictive. And it is that at the World Cup break, Atlético left out of the Champions League positions, below Real Sociedad (of which it came to seven) and tied on points with Betis and Athletic. Those were days when there was a debate in gatherings about whether Simeone’s contract included a clause (it does) by which the club could do without his services without compensation if there was no Champions League.
But six months later, Atlético del Cholo has already validated its Champions League ticket, located even ahead of Real Madrid, of which it was thirteen points below. Despite the terrible start to the championship, the rojiblancos have finally qualified easily. “We repeated something that at one point seemed very complicated,” Simeone summed up well. Last year it was the same, the team was also out of the Champions League (it was 6th on matchday 24) and they invented the 14-game League thing. And two years ago they were champions, in a very suffered second round. It was Simeone’s second league title in seven years.
In the eleven complete campaigns with Cholo in command they have never come down from the podium: two Leagues (2014 and 2021), two runners-up (2018 and 2019) and the rest third places. This year he fights for his third runner-up.
In Spain, many see entering the Champions League as the “minimum objective” of Atlético de Madrid. In the club itself they define it that way. But at a European level, doing it for eleven consecutive years is a goal within the reach of only one small group of chosen. A cast that includes Barcelona and Real Madrid, which here seems to detract from its value, but in all of Europe only Bayern Munich, PSG, Manchester City and Juventus (he has yet to seal it mathematically) have been present in the Champions League for the last eleven seasons without missing a single one.
great clubs they have not been able to classify for the maximum continental club competition on one or more occasions during this period. The Portuguese Porto and Benfica and the German Borussia Dortmund are the only ones that have only missed the appointment once in these eleven years. In the Netherlands, Ajax has been absent three times. In England, Manchester United has not played in the Champions League four of the last years, Chelsea three after the fiasco of this campaign, and Liverpool is about to be left out for the fourth time since 2013. Another historic Premier, Arsenal, He will return to the European Cup next year after six seasons without being among the best. While in Italy Milan went seven seasons without playing it (from 2014 to 2021) and Inter six (from 2012 to 2018). So opening the focus becomes more relevant what has been achieved by Simeone’s Atlético.
From Courtois, to Oblak; from Godín, to Hermoso; from Falcao, to Griezmann; or from Arda, to Carrasco… Only Koke survives from that original classification of Cholo for the Champions League, back in 2013. Many point out that it is already an “obligation” due to its status as the third largest budget in the League, although a few they still remember how returning to the Champions League in 2008 (eleven years later) was celebrated in Neptune by some fans. Success or duty, one matter is clear. No one questions Simeone’s continuity anymore. At least next season. The eleventh with the Champions League suit.
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