News · From the live show
From 'team under construction' to pizza: Simeone's catchphrases
Rubén Uría believes Simeone will keep repeating his line until matchday 38 precisely because it irritates people
Hjulmand, Cuti Romero, Musso and Julián Alvarez. - Photo: Atlético de Madrid official website
"It's still a team under construction." Rubén Uría is convinced Simeone will repeat it all season because he knows it annoys plenty of people. The panel runs through his stock phrases: "we'll take the game to where we think we can hurt them" and that famous "Do you like pizza? Eat pizza."
When one of the panellists says Atleti are still a team under construction, Rubén Uría cannot help but smile. He insists Simeone will keep saying it until matchday 38, because he has already seen that it annoys people, and Pepe Pasqués knows him well. Around the table, they picture the day Barcelona lose their first game: Simeone will say it is a real achievement for a team that is still under construction.
Uría recalls another of his signature lines: "we'll take the game to where we think we can hurt them". He says Simeone came out with it once, it went down well in the dressing room, and he has been repeating it for two years. Pasqués, laughing, corrects him: it is two years and ten months. He also reveals that, over coffee with journalists, Simeone joked about why nobody dared ask him where he wanted to take the game. Uría recalls that one day someone did ask, and the answer was: "I'm not going to tell you."
The last one is the pizza line: "Do you like pizza? Eat pizza." According to Uría, it no longer applies, because the first person who no longer likes pizza is Simeone himself. The panel jokes that he now prefers milanesas, and Pasqués signs off by saying it did not last long because they sold the business.