It can be argued: yes, Atlético Madrid plays destructive, hard, demanding football, Atlético play monotonous and boring, and they have a weak season, but one thing is certain: Until Simeone, Atlético in the 21st century was an average club in Spain with a few pale outings in the European Cups. With him, they became a stable TOP3 club from La Liga, which is very successful in the European Cups.
From the 23rd of December 2011 until today, Atlético Madrid has been eliminated from the group stage of the Champions League only once and it happened for the first time this season.
After the 2:1 defeat by Porto in the popular Spanish media a title appeared: the management of Atlético Madrid talked to people close to Luis Enrique, the head coach of Spain, in order to appoint him as the new coach right after the 2022 World Cup.
After a few hours, a denial arrived. The media announced that Atlético will not change the coach. The management believed that such a bad result in Europe is the first in 10 years and sincerely believes that Simeone will fight for the La Liga title. The gap from the leader Barcelona is ten points and that is not exactly the most realistic scenario.
The resignation of the Argentine will also mean that Atlético Madrid will have to pay an astronomical 14 million euros, which in the conditions of the world crisis and in general, is an ugly amount of money. The club could reportedly agree with Simeone to drop that sum to something reasonable, but that is unlikely due to the board’s strained relationship with him. He has a contract until 2024. In March, the French L’Equipe published an annual salary rating in the top leagues, and Diego Simeone was the highest paid. Paid even more than any other footballer in French Ligue 1. Cholo earns 3.3 million euros per month! Among the coaches, the closest to him is Pep Guardiola with a dizzying salary of 1.89 million euros per month at City.
Due to the early elimination from the European Cups (they don’t even go to the Europa League), Atlético Madrid will reportedly lose around 20 million euros. Last season, they earned 40 million euros only from earnings from UEFA for good results.
