A year or so ago, it looked over for Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid.
They were on the fringes of the top four in La Liga, their most immediate rivals being Real Betis rather than Real Madrid. They were not just out of the Champions League, but had finished bottom of a group they were favourites for at the start. They had been knocked out of the Copa del Rey by Real Madrid. Unthinkably, some of Simeone’s decisions were being whistled by Atletico fans who had previously bowed to his every move. His status as reportedly the best-paid coach in the world, at €23million ($25m; £20.2m) a year, was looking less and less like value for money.
But something clicked towards the end of January. Atletico only lost two more league games in the remainder of the season and finished in a respectable third place, only a point behind Real. This season, their domestic performance hasn’t been quite so hot (they’re currently a reasonably distant fourth), but they’re in the Champions League quarter-finals with a solid chance of progressing against a flawed Borussia Dortmund side. In November, he signed a new three-year contract that included a wage cut to around €16.5million.
If Simeone stays until the end of that deal, he will have been at Atletico for 16 years. He’s already comfortably the longest-serving manager in the club’s history and by some distance the longest-serving current manager in Spain. In the top European leagues, he’s only behind Frank Schmitt, who has been with Heidenheim since 2007. All of which is even more remarkable considering he had six different jobs in five years before moving to Madrid.
Simeone with the Europa League trophy in 2012 (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images)
This sort of longevity is unheard of at top European clubs, certainly in the post-Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson years and definitely at the top Spanish teams. Barcelona’s longest-tenured coach was Jack Greenwell and his 10 seasons came in the 1910s; since then, only Johan Cruyff lasted longer than five seasons. Miguel Munoz managed Real Madrid for 14 years, but since he left in 1974, Vicente del Bosque’s four years have been the longest spell.
The pressures of those two are greater than at Atletico, but Simeone has essentially created that sort of situation for himself. When he arrived in 2011, they were merely a big club whose glory days were in the past. Now, they’re established members of the European elite, Champions League stalwarts (2023-24 is their 11th consecutive season in it), perennial title contenders (they’ve never finished lower than third since his first season), and, according to the Deloitte Money League at least, the 15th richest club in Europe.
Simeone is Atletico and Atletico is Simeone. For long spells of his 13 years, the team has reflected his personality: intense, aggressive, not always attractive but often effective. It is hard to imagine one without the other.
After winning the Europa League in 2018 (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
And yet, there was once a time when he was coveted across Europe and beyond. Chelsea have been keen at various points. Manchester City were credited with an interest before Pep Guardiola. His former Serie A clubs, Lazio and Inter Milan, have been possible destinations. He has spoken about wanting the Argentina job at some point.
These days, though, his name tends not to be mentioned in connection with other jobs. That’s not necessarily because his star has fallen to the point nobody else wants him, seemingly more an acceptance from the wider football world that he’s an Atletico lifer, and when he does leave it will be on his terms.
The new contract suggests he won’t be leaving any time soon. “I am 12 years at this club and I still have the same emotion as a kid going to train the team,” he said last year.
The colossal contracts have, to say the least, helped keep him there. Quite apart from the actual money, the kudos of being the highest-paid person in the world in any field is a powerful enough ego boost to keep anyone in a job. Simeone hasn’t purely stayed at Atletico because he enjoys a sentimental story and going against prevailing modern football trends.
But it’s tempting to think about what might have been had he gone elsewhere at some point over the past decade. Might he have made sense of Chelsea? Manchester United, even? Inter are strong now, but they weren’t for a lot of the time Simeone was linked with the job. It’s a bit like those couples who met at school and have been with each other ever since: lovely, but don’t you wonder even a little bit about what else is out there?
Is it too late now? Is he institutionalised? Would the outside world/another job make sense to Simeone after so long at one club? Managers who spend so long in one place basically never go on to do anything else. Ferguson retired. Wenger probably wanted to carry on managing but has settled as an administrator now. Guy Roux, who was at Auxerre for 36 years, tried to take another job but only lasted four games at Lens.
Guy Roux, astonishingly long-serving football manager (Samira Bouhin/AFP via Getty Images)
Simeone isn’t unique in terms of longevity or how intertwined with a single club he has become. Pep Guardiola has been at Manchester City for eight years. Jurgen Klopp is leaving Liverpool after nine. Max Allegri has been Juventus coach for eight years over two spells. Mikel Arteta and Simone Inzaghi have not been at Arsenal and Inter for as long, but are becoming as beloved.
But Simeone is out ahead. He and Atletico are so knitted together it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. It might not be especially sensible from a longer-term succession-planning perspective (good luck to whoever eventually replaces him), but football is, as much as anything else, about emotional connections, so we should encourage them whenever they come along, especially when they’re this deep.
Such longevity allows someone to evolve, too. Atletico’s style of play has changed to a slightly more possession-based approach than the 11-pronged battering ram it was in the mid-2010s. Simeone himself has changed, too, the edges slightly smoothed without him necessarily becoming soft. He’s still Simeone, but perhaps a slightly more clarified version.
So maybe we shouldn’t wonder what he might have achieved at another club. Rather than speculating on whether he should have moved somewhere else, or could still move somewhere else, maybe we should be celebrating the fact he has stayed for so long, something that is so rare now. Everything in football is transient: players, presidents, stadia, team colours, owners. A club will usually look completely different in five years, never mind 13.
Simeone celebrates winning La Liga in 2021 (Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images)
Simeone has won two league titles for Atletico in an era when Spanish football has essentially been a duopoly. He is responsible for two of their four major European trophies and two of their three Champions League/European Cup finals. He’s arguably the most important figure in the club’s history and he’s there now.
This generation of football fans has been lucky enough to be around for some of the greatest players and managers the game has ever seen. Maybe Simeone isn’t quite on that level, but his story with Atletico is.
Even those of us with no connection to Atletico or even Spanish football should cherish it.
(Top photo: Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images)
