“I have known Radamel since he was a child. Lots of things link us, good and bad. But on the pitch, we are happy to have a striker like him amongst us because football is about transmission, and he transmits positive energy.”—Diego Simeone, Atlético de Madrid manager, on Radamel Falcao.
“He came for this, to be important for the team, in games like this. The team needed a forward with his rage, his intensity, the mistakes he provokes in opponents. That is very important.”—Diego Simeone, Atlético de Madrid manager, on Diego Costa.
The 2012/13 season was Diego Simeone’s first full campaign in charge of Atléti, and a Europa League win and fifth-place league finish after being parachuted in to saving a flailing team simply wasn’t enough for El Cholo. Atlético hadn’t finished in the top three in La Liga in fifteen years. They hadn’t beaten Real Madrid since 1999. To effect the change he wanted, he needed a pair of weapons, some heavy artillery to shake up the established order of things.
Costa had returned to the club from an aborted loan spell in Turkey and a near-miraculous six-month recovery from a ruptured cruciate ligament. He’d been ferried between Celta Vigo, Albacete and Real Valladolid before a snarling 16-game spell at Rayo Vallecano, where he crashed ten goals, finally gave him Simeone’s undivided attention. Here was his weapon. The growling partner to the angel-faced Falcao, whose slinking, sharp movements had brought home 36 goals the previous season.
Radamel Falcao and Diego Costa. The Disgusting Brothers. A duo so good they could make a Scottish kid 1500 miles away fall in love with unfashionable Atléti at a time when everyone he knew was talking about Barça and Madrid, Ronaldo and Messi. This is their story in four parts…
