Diego Simeone’s super-charged Atletico Madrid were just too much for Xabi Alonso’s eventually overwhelmed Bayer Leverkusen.
The 2-1 result in Tuesday’s Champions League match was definitely not decided by a tactical masterclass from Simeone. Alonso had arguably picked the better XI and also made the more sensible substitutions to deal with how the game kept changing.
But once more, Atletico showed heart and decisiveness — all the characteristics that Simeone’s super-intense management transmits to his best sides.
Alonso was left to rue the result in a duel between two of Europe’s most high-profile coaches — and how his usually so well-organised and resilient team let slip a game that seemed they had full control of at one point.
On a wet night at a heaving Estadio Metropolitano, both coaches were similarly dressed in dark coats — with the main difference being Alonso’s shiny white trainers to Simeone’s similarly shiny black shoes.
Through the opening stages, the Spaniard mostly watched with his arms behind his back, and regularly adjusted his team’s positioning from the touchline. The Argentinian bounced on his toes, mentally kicking every ball with his players, making every tackle and disputing every officiating call against his side.
Leverkusen looked the better set-up side and were well on top even before Atletico midfielder Pablo Barrios was sent off on 25 minutes for a foul right in front of the visitors’ technical area. While Simeone railed against the decision — which came after a VAR review — Alonso used the break to offer more instructions to several of his players.
Simeone celebrates as Atletico win the game on Tuesday (Oscar Del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images)
The match then took on a familiar form, with 10-man Atletico settling in to defend and looking to grab something on the counter-attack. But that plan was in deep trouble when Leverkusen left-back Piero Hincapie was left completely unmarked 10 yards out to head them in front just before half-time.
Leverkusen looked to press their advantage after the break, with Alonso sending on striker Patrik Schick for defender Nordi Mukiele. But they were caught out on 52 minutes by a simple long-ball forward by Antoine Griezmann. Julian Alvarez showed superb determination and technique to shrug off much bigger defender Jonathan Tah and fire a shot low into the net.
The momentum had swung to Simeone’s side, and there was nothing Alonso could do.
Hincapie’s second yellow card made it 10 versus 10 on the pitch on 76 minutes, and Alvarez’s excellently taken second goal of the night won it for Atletico just as the game went into stoppage time.
Simeone set off running down the sideline to join in the celebrations, while Alonso just turned coolly on his heel and walked away in the other direction, keeping his thoughts and emotions to himself.
A tremendous encounter was just the latest meeting of two men whose football careers have been intertwined for over two decades now — and who also might be seeing a lot more of each other quite soon.
Alonso and Simeone had fantastic playing careers, often wearing the No 14 shirt for club and country. They were midfield generals who set the tempo for their teams and appeared in decisive moments — if the European was more of an elegant playmaker, the South American had a reputation as an aggressive enforcer.
Simeone experienced Alonso’s first steps as a player — they met twice during Real Sociedad versus Atletico games in 2003-04, when the former’s playing career was almost over. Alonso then had a first-hand view of Simeone’s impact when he returned to Atletico as coach in December 2011, as he was then a holding midfielder in a Real Madrid team who soon found they had proper rivals for ‘derbi’ meetings.
“It was very tough, lots of stoppages, many protests, but that is nothing new here,” Alonso said after a hard-fought 2-2 draw at Atletico in March 2014. “But you must get used to it — intensity is one of Atletico’s qualities. If you combine that with playing good football, then you always have a better chance to win.”
Simeone returned the compliment that same month when he was asked by Spanish magazine Jotdown to pick his current favourite player. “Players like Xabi Alonso in midfield have the capacity to read the whole game,” Simeone said. “Alonso’s return meant Madrid found the famous ‘balance’ their coach (then as now, Carlo Ancelotti) was looking for. But the balance is Xabi Alonso, not the others.”
Simeone was also right there as Alonso’s senior coaching career started. His fifth game in charge of Leverkusen was here at Atletico’s Metropolitano stadium in October 2022. That was a fantastically exciting ding-dong 2-2 — with Atletico missing a 99th penalty and eventually being eliminated from the Champions League after the group stage.
That game had its feisty moments, on both benches as well as the pitch. Alonso was booked by Clement Turpin for grabbing the ball to stop Atletico from taking a quick throw-in at one point. Simeone confronted Turpin at the end to complain about the French official’s decisions during the match.
“They both really want to win,” a source who knows both managers well but did not want to offend either with their comments — and who asked to be kept anonymous to protect relationships — told The Athletic this week when asked about the similarities between Alonso and Simeone.
During Simeone’s 13 years in charge of Atletico and Alonso’s nearly two-and-a-half years managing Leverkusen, both have clearly made their mark on their teams.
Alonso has been widely praised for installing a very modern mix of front-foot possession and pressing. Simeone’s brand of football has always been to defend deep and hit the opposition on the counter-attack — although over the seasons his team has evolved and added very technical playmakers such as Griezmann and Rodrigo De Paul.
A look at some key metrics from the two teams’ seasons shows how their styles can be compared and contrasted. Given the reputations of Alonso and Simeone as both players and coaches, it might surprise some how many similarities were thrown up.
The first slight eyebrow-raiser was that although Leverkusen had gained one more Champions League point through the first six games of the competition’s new league phase this season (13-12), Atletico had both scored (14-12) and conceded (10-5) more goals than Alonso’s Bundesliga title holders before their meeting in Madrid.
There are surprising similarities between the two styles of play (Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images)
As the graphic below shows, many of the teams’ numbers across all competitions this season are quite similar — their chance creation metric was exactly the same, while they have almost the same, very high, amount of ‘patience’ in attack, and both are similarly excellent at press resistance.
There are some stark differences too — the ‘high line’ metric shows how Leverkusen are much more aggressive than Atletico when it comes to squeezing up from the back. This is related to how they tend to dominate territory more often (higher field tilt 92-66), playing much more of their football in the opponent’s defensive third of the pitch.
Maybe the biggest surprise in the numbers was both teams have relatively low ‘intensity’ rankings — suggesting they are generally quite happy to let the opposition have possession in not-so-dangerous areas.
A remarkable similarity between Alonso’s Leverkusen and Simeone’s Atletico is their tendency to score crucial late goals.
So many of the German side’s wins during last season’s Bundesliga triumph came through goals in added time. Atletico’s recent club-record 15-game winning run was delivered by waves of substitutions which often overwhelmed opponents late on — and that was before Alvarez’s 90th-minute goal completed the turnaround last night.
Asked by The Athletic at the pre-match news conference whether Alonso’s personality and character were reflected in how Leverkusen played, Simeone said: “You can really see how he sees football from the centre of the pitch, which is where you can see it best. He had great coaches alongside him to help him and feed him with so many things. So absolute congratulations for all the work he is doing.”
Alonso also accepted the premise when The Athletic asked him the same question about his opposite number during Leverkusen’s media session at the Metropolitano on Monday.
“(He is) a coach who has been here so long, who has had so much direct participation in the progress of this club, and the successes of the team,” Alonso replied. “He has been generating and creating a mentality. ‘El Cholo’ (Simeone’s nickname, derived from an Argentinian player with his surname in the 1970s who was also called that) and Atletico, the connection is intense, perfect and successful. There is also a connection with players like Koke, Griezmann, De Paul, who are devoted to his idea of the game. His stamp on the team and the club is very clear.”
Alonso’s visit to the Spanish capital this week was even more closely scrutinised than it would normally be, given heavy recent speculation he could soon return there permanently as former club Madrid’s next first-team coach.
This idea is not new. Alonso began his coaching career in their youth system, then had three seasons managing his boyhood club Real Sociedad’s B team before getting the Leverkusen job. His success there has been followed closely at the Bernabeu — where many see him as the obvious candidate to replace the now 65-year-old Ancelotti, sooner or later.
Alonso would not have been completely surprised when the very first question the 43-year-old faced at Monday’s pre-game news conference was not about Atletico, but whether he could confirm he would still be Leverkusen’s coach next year.
“I cannot confirm anything, as we’re in the middle of this season,” he replied. “All clubs have big objectives — Atletico, Real Madrid, us too. Every three days we have a game to prepare. Tomorrow is a really important game in the Champions League. I’m focused on that, above all.”
His non-answer answer was delivered in Alonso’s typically unruffled manner. He was similarly relaxed when asked whether he was happy about how Madrid fans retained their connection to him, 11 years after he left to join Bayern Munich.
There are questions over whether Alonso might return to Real Madrid as head coach (Denis Doyle/Getty Images)
“The years pass, but the affection remains, you cannot forget that,” he agreed. “The connection remains very strong. They were very intense years (playing for Madrid), it cost us a lot to achieve what we did, but then we celebrated it a lot, and that stays with you.”
The most intense of those years was Jose Mourinho’s time as head coach — when the Portuguese eventually fell out with many of his players, including legends Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos and even countryman Cristiano Ronaldo. But Alonso stuck tightly with his manager through the whole period, loyalty that club president Florentino Perez is unlikely to have forgotten. That also showed that — just like Simeone — what really matters most for Alonso is winning.
Simeone’s current comfort in his position at Atletico — with a new-look team that includes summer signings such as Alvarez and Conor Gallagher blending nicely — was also evident during Monday’s press events.
The 54-year-old smirked as he kept feeding the current debate with Madrid figures — including Ancelotti — over whether the Bernabeu side have historically been favoured by match officials. Simeone reminded everyone that the Italian had complained loudly about the refereeing when he and Bayern (a side including Alonso) were eliminated from the 2016-17 Champions League via a quarter-final second-leg defeat at the Bernabeu.
Alonso dodged elegantly again when asked for his current views over whether Madrid were favoured by referees. “You want to get me into controversy here,” he said with another smile. “I’m not getting into that debate.”
That was a taster of the questioning Alonso would face should he become Madrid coach.
The whole issue is a sensitive one for him, given how close he became with Ancelotti during their time together at Madrid and Bayern. He will know that Ancelotti does not want to leave the Bernabeu. He also gives the impression of being in no hurry to say goodbye to Leverkusen, as the Madrid opportunity will likely still be there whenever the time comes.
Alonso also said on Monday that his current side would have to be ready to deal with the experience of 90 minutes in a rocking Metropolitano. “We’ll have to know how to read the moments in the game and the emotional moments in the stadium when the fans drive Atletico on,” he predicted.
By the end of the second half last night, as Simeone conducted the singing which rang all around the stadium, that prediction seemed spot on. Alonso’s Leverkusen were ultimately unable to handle the situation.
Considering all the credit he has in the bank with the Madrid fans and the club hierarchy, Tuesday’s defeat is unlikely to affect Alonso’s chances of getting a chance to have a few more attempts at quieting the Metropolitano crowd, with another club, sooner or later.
(Top photo: Alvaro Medranda/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
