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#3 Diego Simeone
A tenacious, battle-hardened and multitalented midfielder during his playing career, Simeone took many facets of his game into his managerial style and instilled the same discipline in his players. He was a leader on the field and as a manager, he has an authoritarian style that has worked wonders for him so far.
Simeone started his managerial career at Racing club in February 2006 and over his managerial career has presided over 586 matches, winning 330 of them, with a win% of 56.31%. He has won a total of 9 trophies so far in his managerial career. However, his big break came at Atletico Madrid, where he joined in December 2011.
Barcelona and Real Madrid were dominating the LaLiga then. Valencia had been the only club other than those two who had last won the LaLiga, in the 2003/04 season. In his first season, Simeone managed to improve Atletico Madrid to a 5th place finish and also won the 2011/12 Europa League. Next season, he managed to do even better, guiding them to a third-place finish and taking them back to the champions league for the first time in 4 years, while winning the Copa del Rey. But the best was yet to come.
From Valencia’s win in 2003/04 season and up until the 2013/14 season, Barcelona had won the LaLiga 6 times, with Real Madrid winning the other 3 times. Yet in the 2013/14 season, Simeone managed to do something magical. He first oversaw a club record 8 straight victories in LaLiga, which included a gritty 1-0 win at Santiago Bernabeu. Needing a draw away at the Nou Camp in the last game of the season to win the title, Simeone’s Atletico Madrid got a hard-fought 1-1 draw and lifted the trophy, achieving a club record 90 points, for the first time since 1996, when, ironically, Simeone was a part of the title-winning team.
In the Champions League, Atletico defeated Milan in the round of 16, Barcelona in the quarterfinals, Chelsea in the semifinals, but was ultimately defeated in the final by Real Madrid. Even though it was a heartbreaking defeat, it did not matter; Simeone was already embedded in the Atletico Folklore.
Since then, Simeone has managed to finish within the top 3 consistently, while last season, Atletico ended the season above Real Madrid in second, while also winning the UEFA Europa League 2017/18. Simeone has managed 382 games for Atletico so far, winning 235 of them, with a 61.52 win%.
This season, Simeone won his second UEFA Super Cup after defeating Real Madrid 4-2 in a fabulous game. Even though Atletico Madrid have made a nervy start to the new season – they have won 1, lost 1 and drawn 1 so far – with Simeone at the helm, they cannot be ruled out of a title challenge any time soon.
