Liverpool welcome Diego Simeone and Atletico Madrid to Anfield in three weeks for the return leg of their Champions League fixture. We analyse the man here in the second part of this mini series.
We begin with Diego Simeone, el Cholo in part two. Read part one here.
In Mexican Spanish, el Cholo means gangster or street thug. This epithet describes his playing and managerial style and philosophy to a T. It is called anti-football. And Simeone is a master of this patently Argentinian style, of hard-nosed win at all cost, hyper-physical and psychologically intimidating football.
Diego was a very intelligent, and competent, skilled player from a young age by all accounts. Playing as a defensive back and in later years as a defensive holding midfielder, he was very successful from deep positions bolting forward through the center of the park to join the attack.
He scored a good many goals in this fashion for both club and country. In Argentina, Italy, and Spain.
Playing against Simeone as a player, and in his managerial years, can be succinctly described as ‘a broken bottle battle in a dark alley affair’. He played this way and his managerial style reflects this belligerent pugnacious anti-footballing style which he grew up with in the developmental youth leagues of Buenos Aries.
Any examination of Liverpool’s foe and his footballing philosophy must begin with an understanding of the history and ethos of Argentinian national football. The environment the young Diego grew up in, in Buenos Ares, saw a period of revolutionary change in the football style in the domestic and national team ethos.
There isn’t a more football obsessed people on the planet, than the Argentinians. And anything less than success is unacceptable.
“If you are not giving maximum effort, then why are you here?” -Diego Simione
Likewise, “If you’re not willing to do anything to win, again I say, why are you here.” This is Diego in a nutshell.