Pepe Pasqués: Simeone's remark that recalls the Cholo of old

Rubén Uría believes Simeone no longer talks the way he did last year. Pepe Pasqués, who has worked with the coach, has noticed it too: he loved his line about the level needed to go down in the club's history. He sees it as an old-school statement, aimed more at the dressing room than at the outside world.

In the second panel discussion, Rubén Uría suggests that Diego 'Cholo' Simeone's messages in his press conferences have changed compared with last season. He turns to Pepe Pasqués, who has worked side by side with the coach and knows how to read him. Uría says that throughout the whole of last season he never heard Simeone talk about levels, and that now the coach distinguishes between the level needed to play for Atlético and the level needed to go down in its history. If he is sending out that message, Uría reasons, it is because he believes the team is on the right track.

Pasqués agrees. He says he senses something different and that he loved that statement. Knowing both the man and the persona, he considers it very different from what had been happening in recent seasons. It caught his attention, and pleasantly so, because it is one of those old-style statements: not so sharp or provocative for public consumption, but carrying a strong message within the walls of the club. He ends on a cautious note: things are either achieved or not in the end, and he hopes he is not mistaken.