Perhaps at times he has been a victim of his own persona, his own philosophy. But if Diego Pablo Simeone has been at the helm of Atlético Madrid for 15 years now — certainly a record by modern football standards — it cannot simply be down to gratitude for what he has achieved, or an attachment to the collective image that made the Colchoneros known around the world. In this sport, above all in this sport, you have to know how to adapt. And just when more than a few people, in the press and among observers, were beginning to write him off, Simeone seems to have built an Atlético unlike any of his previous versions.
Because today it is a team that scores. A team that moves the ball. A team that plays. And, more importantly, a team that has started winning again: five victories from eight matches so far this season. The numbers are not necessarily spectacular, but they are significant given how they have come. Especially when you look at the Madrid derby against Real: the 2-1 victory, which lifted them into second place behind an untouchable Barça, only tells part of the story. Alvarez and his teammates dominated every phase of the game. Eighteen shots to eight. 61 per cent possession. Almost twice as many completed passes as the blancos. In other words, goodbye to narrow-margin football, to sitting back, to battles of nerves. Goodbye Cholismo. And welcome back, Cholo.
Just when his Atleti is short of the talents and veteran figures who shaped so many of Simeone’s earlier sides — with the exception of the indestructible Koke — the coach has found a way to trust the new generation, reshaping the way the team plays around the qualities of the players he has at his disposal today and, among other things, reviving Jonathan David’s goalscoring touch. Easy to say, much harder to execute with such effectiveness and in so little time. Apart from a poor showing in Bilbao, the Colchoneros have played on the front foot throughout: even against Liverpool, in their second defeat of the season, they went down narrowly at Anfield despite having more of the ball. More generally, that has been the pattern in seven of their first eight matches of 2026/27, with Atlético attempting more than 500 passes in each of them.
And the winning goal scored by the former Juve man against Real is the clearest expression yet of this new idea: David found the net after 22 consecutive passes involving nine different players, over 63 seconds of uninterrupted action before the ball found its way past Courtois. An absolute record in the Madrid derby since Opta began recording this kind of data. The move was built patiently, with Atlético now boasting the third-best attack in La Liga with an entirely different approach: perhaps there is more risk at the back, but it may be worth it, especially if the Colchoneros have found a way to move the ball at this level. Today, AS even ran the headline “Atleti-taca”, and it is hard to think of a better shorthand for this new Atlético: if it is not quite a coronation of Simeone’s ability to reinvent himself, it comes close.