[Sport] The Sheffield United manager explains what inspires him about Atlético de Simeone

[UltimaTexCS]

Atlético de Madrid is fighting to take the LaLiga title. If they were to do so, it would be a spectacular success, another in a career in these years in which the rojiblanco team, with fewer resources and economic power than the powerful European rivals, stood up to them and surpassed them many times.

That is why he is an inspiration for many teams. One of them, as he himself has confessed, is Paul Heckingbottom, coach of Sheffield United.

The 'Blades' coach spent time studying two clubs in particular and they have served as inspiration. One of them was Atlético de Madrid. The other, Jurgen Klopp's Borussia Dortmund. He chose both clubs because they embody the model of teams that were able to achieve great success and performance in highly competitive environments and did so from a point of some inequality of resources with their competitors.

“Atlético is the leader of LaLiga right now, but in terms of resources and infrastructure, should they be above Barcelona or Real Madrid? Probably not. It was the same when Dortmund won the league and the cup in their country .

The coach explained that he had the opportunity to study various clubs but discarded those that achieved success through the purchase of the best players and the largest budgets. Instead, he wanted to understand the model of teams that outperformed them, against the best, to achieve success. "Simeone and Klopp are huge achievers," Heckingbottom explained.

“It was for that purpose, really, to observe the similarities of teams that outperform more powerful rivals in terms of tactics, performance and environment. You take pieces of that experience with you. Culture is a big issue. That hunger, how does that hunger develop? ”He reflected to point out:“ Dortmund at the time were a fantastic counter team and they defended in a way that allowed them to counter the first pass, which was fantastic. Atlético were an even better defensive team, but they defended with four defenders differently than the way Dortmund

defended with four defenders. The similarities are more in terms of the identity of the team on the court, the hunger, what they are doing and what success looks like for them. How does that culture develop?

“They can play a different formation, but there will be an identity and similarities between them, whether it be the hunger of the players on the field, the intensity to try to recover the ball, whether they are scorers in the team, there will be There are similarities. They have to be doing something better than any other team, the competition is that fierce, "he explained.

The coach of the English team studied Atlético and Jurgen Klopp's Dortmund in depth.