When Diego Simeone was appointed manager of Atlético Madrid in December 2011, he faced an awkward conversation with his son. Taking over in Madrid meant he would be spending less time with his family in Argentina. His son’s concerns, though, were rather different. “You’re taking on Messi and Ronaldo?” the nine-year-old said and laughed at the implausibility of such an undertaking.
Simeone has come out on top against Lionel Messi twice in his four and a half years in Madrid but he has chosen his moments well, twice leading Atlético to success over Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals. Tuesday’s victory was an archetypal snuffing out, a transcendent example of how to prevent an opponent’s stars from shining. Simeone took on the Messi problem and solved it.
Another meeting with Real Madrid can wait but the next task for Atlético is slaying an ogre from their past that looms in their consciousness every bit as large as Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Six minutes from the end of extra time in the 1974 European Cup final, Atlético took the lead against Bayern Munich through a Luis Aragonés free-kick . They seemed set to become the second Spanish team to win the competition but, in the final minute, Georg Schwarzenbeck larruped a 30-yard drive past Miguel Reina, Pepe’s dad, to level. The goalkeeper, legend has it, had been distracted by a photographer.
Bayern won the replay 4-0. It would be a further 40 years before Atlético reached another final, and again they were undone by a last-minute equaliser, this time from Sergio Ramos: beating Bayern in the semi and Madrid in the final would be a way of laying all the ghosts of European finals past.
This will be the first meeting of Atlético and Bayern since that 1974 final and Simeone has come up against Pep Guardiola only once before – a 2-1 defeat for Atlético against Barça in 2011-12. Atlético’s quarter-final against Barça, though, offers about as good a practice for meeting Bayern as there could be. Guardiola has evolved at Bayern, is no longer wedded to 4-3-3 and is more prepared to play long balls and risk possession, but the tenets he has instilled in Munich are those he instilled at Barça.
Bayern will dominate possession against Atlético, just as Barça did (they had around 72% possession in both legs of the quarter-final), but that doesn’t bother Simeone. He is quite prepared to play without the ball. There will be times when his midfield four sit very deep, 10 yards or so in front of his back four, denying Bayern space, but there will also be times when they press.
What was noticeable in the second leg of the Barça game was how effectively Atlético shut down the channels between Sergio Busquets and the full-backs, disrupting Barça’s natural pattern of passing out from the back. That interaction between a deep-lying midfielder (Xabi Alonso and/or Thiago Alcântara) and attacking full-backs (probably Philipp Lahm and David Alaba) is central to Bayern’s way of playing as well and that’s sure to be an area Simeone will target.
The beauty of this tie is that it pits the defensive master, Simeone, the great destroyer, the coach who has made the disruption of the opponent into an art form, against the great creator, Guardiola, the godfather of tiki-taka, the most protean tactician in the modern game. Until the games kick-off, nobody will quite be sure how Guardiola will deploy his resources. Part of the challenge for Simeone is to predict that and then to combat it.
Other than Simeone, the concern for Guardiola must be that Bayern, once again, seem to have lost some of their rhythm in the second half of the season. Douglas Costa is not quite at the level he was before Christmas, while there were spells against Juventus and Benfica when Bayern have seemed laboured in possession. Talk of decline is relative – Bayern have dropped seven points in 12 games since the winter break – but the defensive frailties that have been exposed in Europe might be a concern. Manuel Neuer made errors in the second legs against Juve and Benfica and it was significant how rattled Bayern were at times by Juve’s pressing. Simeone will have taken note.
In his past three seasons in the competition, Guardiola teams have been exposed in the semi-final, last time by the brilliance of the Barcelona built on the foundations he left and on the previous two occasions by more pragmatic sides countering decisively. It’s not only Atlético who may look to the past and see points to be made and demons to be slain.
But for Atlético it’s as though this Champions League is following Simeone’s son’s checklist. Overcome Messi? Done. Overcome Ronaldo? Maybe. But now there is Guardiola to be dispatched.
