Diego Simeone and Pep Guardiola Meet Again in Battle of the History-Makers

There are countless different types of handshakes between opposing coaches at the start of a game. The warm embrace. The step on from that, stopping to shoot the breeze, as if they were fellow regulars in a bar. The brief, cordial, business-like salute. The briefest of eye contact, acknowledging the obligation of the ritual rather than enjoying it.

The moment when Diego Simeone and Pep Guardiola came together before kick-off at the Estadio Vicente Calderon last Wednesday was a curious one. They couldn’t help but be familiar with each other, but there was an element of anticipation—of recognition but inquiry—each trying to work the other out.

They’ve been two such prominent coaches in football’s elite level in recent years that it’s strange to register that they are virtual strangers, certainly in terms of facing each other on the bench, but the UEFA Champions League semi-final first leg between Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich was only the second time they have met in their respective coaching careers.

Both were notable La Liga protagonists in the 1990s; Guardiola as the brain of Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona Dream Team, and Simeone playing the role of surprise goalscoring threat in the Atletico team that won the double in 1996 under Raddy Antic. “Cholo” had originally been summoned to Spain by Carlos Bilardo, arriving at Sevilla in the same summer as his compatriot, Diego Maradona.

Even if Guardiola was raised and Simeone imported—and the former was identified with architecture and the latter with demolition, as player as well as coach—they had plenty in common in terms of what they symbolised. As players, they were so strongly identified with the clubs with which they became Spanish champions that when they arrived back there as head coaches, it seemed pre-ordained.

That Guardiola took the helm of Barcelona’s first team, moving up from his successful charge of the B side, in 2008, seemed the most natural of fits. Let’s not rewrite history, though; if he is regarded as an innovator now, he was at least partly brought in as an in-house, safe pair of hands to bring stability to a dressing room that had become …

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