Buenos Aires – Diego Simeone was working in Argentina in the early years of his coaching career when he requested to attend some training sessions at Barcelona, led at the time by Pep Guardiola.
Barcelona was the pre-eminent club in world soccer, revolutionising the game between 2008-12 with its “tiki-taka” passing style favored by Guardiola and mastered by the likes of Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández.
It wasn’t for Simeone, though.
“We talked,” Guardiola has recounted, “and he told me, ‘I don’t like this. I don’t feel it.’”
Simeone, a combative and hard-working midfielder as a player, saw the beauty of soccer in a different way and, for many, would come to represent the antithesis of Guardiola and his beautiful approach.
A clash of styles soon took hold in Spain, when Simeone moved to Europe to become coach of Atlético Madrid in 2011 — a few months after Barcelona won the Champions League for the second time and in mesmeric fashion at Wembley Stadium.
More than a decade later, the two coaches remain at the top of the game, with Simeone still the embodiment of a rugged and uncompromising Atlético team and Guardiola now attempting to turn soccer into an art form at Manchester City.
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