The cameras stayed with them and the game took a backseat. They were a handful of seconds, but they were enough to understand that the climate was extremely high tension. The face to face of Diego Simeone and the sports director of Borussia Dortmund, Sebastian Kehldominated the scene of the duel between Atlético de Madrid and the German team, for the quarterfinals of the Champions League, and even left the 2-1 victory of the colchonero team in the background. Even in Germany, some figures even expressed themselves in favor of the Dortmund manager due to the altercation with the Argentine coach.
“By the way, wonderful scene of Sebastian Kehl on the touchline with Simeone… Showing strength when appropriate! More of that in the second leg!!!“wrote the former tennis player Boris Becker on platform Michael Ballackassured that Kehl’s reaction was “absolutely right” and argued that Atlético’s behavior, including that of the coach, is known: “You can’t endure everything. We meet Simeone on the line. If the referee does not intervene, it is certainly necessary to reprimand him from time to time. Sebastian Kehl felt called to do it”said Ballack, who served as a commentator for the DAZN streaming channel.
The foul on Emre Can by Rodrigo De Paul, which left the Dortmund player lying on the grass, angered the director of the German team, who went to the red-and-white substitutes’ bench protesting at the continuation of the game by Álvaro Morata . At that moment the TV captured the exact moment in which Simeone went directly towards Kehl: first they stood face to face and a moment later the Argentine pushed him twice with his hands at chest level. The German manager did not allow himself to be pushed or provoked. Simeone’s assistant, Nelson Vivas, intervened to lower tensions, took Cholo away and one of Borussia’s collaborators took Kehl to the substitutes’ bench.
“Emotions come together in this situation. Today was about putting up with the weather, that’s how it was in this situation. It was just about that. It was a scene on the playing field. He knows it, I know it and that’s how it was”Kehl said before the microphones of the German media. Furthermore, he spoke about the return game in Germany: “We leave with the good feeling that we will be able to solve this next week. This is definitely not over.”.
The Borussia Dortmund staff knew that Simeone has an explosive temperament and that he is always trying to push his team and the public at the Metropolitan Stadium with gestures and shouts. That’s what Kehl tried to stop from happening. Simeone did not talk about the situation and only made reference to how he considers the second leg in Germany to be: “People are going to push their team, as our audience often does. We know that we will have a lot of work, but we also understand that we can do things very well in their house.”.