Liverpool vs Atletico: El Cholo, la Nuestra and a knife in your teeth
To right the unrightable wrong
“To right the unrightable wrong”…circa 1958; the Argentine national side had just suffered their worst international defeat to Czechoslovakia 6-1 in the World Cup in Sweden. Up until this time for much of the nation’s football history they were known as a strong, attacking, creative, free flowing football country, where elegance and flair, slick dribbling and inspired passing characterized their style for the previous 50 years.
Not unlike their northern neighbors and arch rivals, the Brazilians; thus we get the term ‘the beautiful game’. But after that ‘58 World Cup shellacking; the entire nation from obscure youth teams and leagues clear on up the ranks to the national side threw out the old tired elegant romantic style for a far more intense, pragmatic-results oriented style that came to be known as ‘La Nuestra’. And at its core was a dogged sense that defense was strength.
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There are two contrasting philosophies at work here. One, says; defense wins championships, and fouling or ‘bad play’ is not a substitute for good defense. This is Jurgen Klopp’s position. The other concedes that defense does indeed win championships, but fouling and getting into an opponents head through bullying, tormenting, taunting, etc. is just another part of the game. This is Simeone’s approach to the game. Kinda like ‘all’s fair in love n war’. So the basic and most important difference in these two giants of European football, comes down to approach.
Diego Simeone’s hard nosed broken bottle in a dark alley kind of approach, focused on winning, and it didn’t really matter all that much how you went about it. ‘Winning is everything’ or the ‘ends justify the means’ is at the heart of this philosophy that was the fertile ground when the Atletico boss entered in his youth and at his first club, Velez. This is where he earned the nickname el Cholo, from his first youth coach and perhaps the most influential to his future playing and managing style.
This era was characterized by an abandonment of the old style or anything that even smelled of European influence. Argentina sought to develop their own brand and style, thus la Nuestra is borne out of necessity to create and define their own footballing style. Often referred to as ‘angels with dirty faces’ these Argentinian sides would straddle the lines of the rules and accepted norms in pursuit of superiority and excellence.