THE FURY OF DIEGO SIMEONE
Diego Simeone can smell the alcohol on Ariel Ortega’s breath. The River Plate boss knows that his captain hasn’t been to bed.
It’s 11am on Saturday June 22, 2008. In a little over 24 hours, River will conclude their title-winning Clausura campaign at Banfield’s Estadio Florencio Sola. The stadium will be full, not only to celebrate the legendary Javier Sanguinetti’s final game for the home side, but to witness Ortega lift the trophy in the centre circle.
El Burrito (‘The Little Donkey’) has already carried out that duty a fortnight earlier, when River wrapped up the league with a game to spare thanks to a 2-1 home win against Olimpo, but this is different. This is symbolic. Ortega will be ceremonially ending the 2007-08 Argentine football season.
But the River manager’s mind is already made up. His skipper and club idol can’t turn up drunk to training the day before a match, no matter how meaningless, and expect to play. Simeone will compromise, however, appreciating how instrumental the ageing playmaker has been in his team’s first title in four years.
“Ariel,” snaps Simeone, “I gave you the No.10 shirt and made you our leader, but you have to think about the team. Look at the state of you. You can’t play.”
“Cholo,” pleads Ortega, using his coach’s nickname, “don’t do this to me. We can talk about this tomorrow. Let me play. It’s the last game.”
“No. No way. What I propose is that you come with us and go onto the pitch with the championship trophy. But you’ll be on the bench.”
“Please, don’t do this to me. Let me play.”
“Ariel, you’re in no fit f**king state! Besides, if I play you, I will create a bad precedent for the group. So, no. I’m sorry.”
“If I’m not playing, I’m not coming.”
“Then don’t come. I’ll go and tell the squad now.”
Three and a half years later, on Christmas Day 2011, an excited Diego Simeone walked through departures at Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza Airport. The Argentine was going home. To Atletico Madrid.
“I felt untouchable,” he recalled. “When I left [Atletico] in December 2004 as a player, I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t want to go. But I knew that I had to leave on good terms before my contract was up, because I wanted to be back as a manager.
“Nothing else mattered. I knew it would go well for me. I sat in that seat on the flight convinced of it.”
Few shared that belief, however. The club Simeone rejoined was an underperforming mish-mash of battling identities, bereft of leadership. Atletico had just lost home and away to third-tier Albacete in the
