Diego Simeone's transformation of Atletico Madrid proves that underdogs can have bite

By Pete Jenson for MailOnline

Published: 18:16 EDT, 20 April 2014 | Updated: 18:16 EDT, 20 April 2014

In 2001, Atletico Madrid launched an advertising campaign in which a young boy sitting in the back of his dad’s car asks: ‘Papa, why do we support Atleti?’

Growing up in Madrid and not following nine-time European Cup winners Real Madrid has seemed like a curse passed on from father to son. Except when Diego Simeone is at the club.

He won the league and cup double with them as a player in 1996 and, since returning as coach in 2011, has won the Europa League, European Super Cup and Spanish Cup. He has now taken them to the Champions League semi-finals for the first time in 40 years and to within four games of winning the league.

Transformation: Diego Simeone has transformed Ateltico Madrid from also-rans into one of Europe's elite

Together: Simeone has created a hugely competitive team who fight for each other

He has galvanised everyone at the club from players through to club’s fervent followers.' Supporters should be protagonists and not just in the big games,' he says in a rallying cry for the run-in.

'Forget the colour of the shirt of the opposition we need them to get behind us as much against the small teams as the big teams. No-one sleeps and no-one eats until they turn the lights out on us. We have to stay together.'

The Vicente Calderon has been full all season and it was still full 20 minutes after that Champions League quarter-final second leg against Barcelona, as the players came back out to the pitch to thank the fans for their support.

Beating Barca was some scalp, on a par with getting the better of Chelsea in the European Super Cup and Real Madrid in last year’s Copa del Rey in a 2-1 win over Jose Mourinho at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Asked two seasons ago if saw himself more in Mourinho or in Guardiola, Simeone didn’t hesitate to pick the now Chelsea manager and there are common traits.

Desire: Even the subs who weren't playing 'lived and breathed' the quarter-final win against Barcelona

Sums it up: Diego Costa suffered a nasty crashing into the post injury such was his willingness to get to the ball

'How do you get players to run through walls for you?' he was asked in an hour-long radio interview with Onda Cero last week.

'It’s not about motivation,' he said. 'Because what is motivation? It’s making them have the will to win and top players already have that. What you need to give them is the instructions that they can use out on the pitch that will help them win.'

He has fostered the spirit of the underdog at the club helping it overcome rivals whose budgets are five times the size of its own.

'The fans of Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Osasuna and Sevilla can all identify with us,' he says.

'They are thinking: "we want to be doing what they are doing." We are fighting against two monsters with huge squads, great players and top managers. We want to be a nusiance. We want to be the team that no-one can stand to play against.'

It’s Mourinho’s proverbial ‘little horse’. A club where unity makes up for the lack of resources and the size of the fight in the dog, is more important than the size of the dog in the fight.

The sum of their parts: Simeone says the squad's togetherness is worth 40 per cent of what they are

'One of the things that had most impact on me in the Barcelona game was the way the players who weren’t involved directly in the match lived and breathed the game,' he says of that Champions League win. 'It is something that is so important and you can’t explain it to people outside of the game. When we lose that togetherness we will lose 40 per cent of what we are.'

There are no signs of the togetherness being lost. Players come and go but the identity under Simeone remains unchanged.

'We can win or we can lose but the way we compete doesn’t change and the way we compete is summed up by Diego Costa crashing into that post,' he says referring to the leading scorer’s collision with the frame of the goal as he scored against Getafe two weeks ago.

Work rate: Flair players like Arda Turan have added hard work to their skill set

Costa will probably go at the end of the season but someone else will pick up the standard. 

Simeone told Onda Cero: 'We can’t offer economically the same as certain other clubs but a player doesn’t just think about that, he thinks about the fact that if he plays here he will be in a ferociously competitive environment.'

The fact that Atletico have competed so well this season is even more remarkable in the light of the state the team was in when he took over.

Main man: Simeone has created a ferociously competitive environment in Madrid

'Everyone wanted to get rid of Tiago, Arda Turan didn’t realise he was allowed to run backwards as well as forward, Juanfran wasn’t a fixture at full-back, Miranda wasn’t in the team, Diego Godin wasn’t what he is now, Felipe Luis did not play,' he says rattling off the names of the players most fans had condemned as a hopeless shower of mediocrity taking them back towards the second division. 

'I’m torn between wanting it to end and not wanting it to end. When it does end, especially if it ends well, then great, but I know that it will leave a big hole,' he says of the season’s dramatic climax. 

Whatever happens Simeon has managed to remind Atletico Madrid supporters just why it is they don’t support the more glamorous and successful lot from the other side of town.