Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone has hit out at Real Madrid and Manchester City in a roundabout way to compliment clubs like Ajax.
What the Argentine boss is saying is that Ajax are a club that produce their own talent, the Galacticos notoriously buy all of their best players and City are the new kids on the block.
The initial comment was targeted at Real Madrid, but Simeone moved on to other clubs. “When a coach arrives at a club, we need to understand their history,” he told La Nacion, as per Marca.
“If we don’t understand it, we are destined to have a worse time than better. If I don’t feel that essence, I don’t go.
“From the moment I agree to go, the healthiest and most noble thing of the coach is to ask ‘what is the history of this club?’ and to mould your style of play to the history of that club, while still being you, of course.
“Ajax has a defined school, Barcelona has it, Juventus too, and Atletico Madrid, but Real Madrid do not, because it alternates based on talent their different ways of presenting themselves.
“There are teams that are being born, such as [Manchester] City of Guardiola, who has no history, but he is slowly enclosing himself in what Guardiola is marking as his path.”
Rivals of City like to remind them of their relative lack of history, something which Chelsea fans have dealt with for years, but they’re winning silverware at the minute and building on that.
He’s on the money with Ajax though – they were incredible last season, and it’s all down to their own making. It’s a shame their league isn’t as competitive as others.
If Ajax were able to compete in a way that clubs in Spain, Italy, England, and even France can then they’d surely be able to keep stars like Matthijs de Ligt, Donny van de Beek and Frenkie de Jong for more than a few season.