Diego Simeone's New Atletico Madrid Contract Allows Club to Keep Building

"SIMEONE2020."

It sounds like a Twitter hashtag. It sounds like a marketing phrase. It sounds like an event. It sounds like a promotional code. It sounds like a celebration. 

It sounds like all of those things. 

Because it is all of those things. 

When Diego Simeone's new contract with Atletico Madrid was announced on Tuesday, as reported by AS, "#SIMEONE2020" was projected in massive gold letters behind him. On Twitter, it appeared immediately. At the club's website, you could use "SIMEONE2020" as a promotional code to get half-price tickets for next weekend's clash with Real Sociedad. 

The club even produced a video using the hashtag, the promotional code, the marketing phrase, to emphasise Simeone's connection with the organisation, what Atleti stand for under their manager. 

Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press

It's hard to imagine another club doing the same. Excitement built around such phrases is normally reserved for cities that win bids for the Olympic Games, for cities that win the right to host the World Cup, for American presidential candidates. 

But Atletico Madrid is not like other clubs. Not even close. It's a sporting institution that, in its entirety, is currently built around one man. It's a growing brand that's a staggering personification of the guy in charge. 

There's not another club across Europe that's identified by its manager in the way Atletico is. 

It is, therefore, inescapable: Simeone is Atletico Madrid. 

Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press

As such, the celebration is understandable. So are the hashtags and promotional codes.

Simeone's new contract might be the club's most notable piece of business in decades. It's a development that allows the club to continue building in his image—that allows Atleti to continue being what they currently are. 

"The club keeps growing," the Argentinian said at his press conference yesterday, acknowledging the progress that is being made at the Vicente Calderon.

"I've made a decision to stay where I am, and decisions are sometimes difficult to make in life. Fortunately, I've been able to make this decision, as I see a club that is moving forward, I see eagerness to grow and people willing to collaborate," he added. 

It's clear that Atletico's trajectory, both on and off the field, played a major role in prolonging his stay by five years. Had the club been stagnating or treading water, one senses Tuesday's news would have never arrived.

But it has. And now the club can keep building and growing because of it.  

Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images

In the short term, Simeone's new deal will allow Atleti to sharpen their focus on the season's final phase. 

When players return from the international break, the club will embark upon the closing stages of an extremely important league campaign in the Primera Division—one that will determine the club's ongoing presence in the Champions League. 

But it's also in that very competition, the Champions League, where Simeone's contract renewal might give Atleti their most immediate boost, with Los Colchoneros set for a quarter-final showdown with Real Madrid. 

All season, the men from the Calderon have had Real's measure. After six encounters, the scoreline reads 4-0 to Atletico, with two draws. 

Simeone has already made his players feel like they can walk through walls when confronted with their crosstown rivals. Now they've got an extra shot in the arm, another psychological boost, ahead of two more encounters. 

Progress, and anything is possible. 

Denis Doyle/Getty Images

Yet Simeone also indicated on Tuesday that he was looking well ahead, too. Typically uninterested in discussing anything more than his side's next game, the Argentinian broke away from his normal narrative to allude to more distant outcomes. 

"Ahead of us, we can look forward to a new stadium, there is a great deal of excitement," he remarked, pointing to the Atletico's 69,000-seat La Peineta stadium currently under construction. "There is plenty ahead for us."

As explained here at Bleacher Report earlier this month, the new arena is among a number of developments that point toward Atletico Madrid's growth:

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The looming move to the new venue has seen Atletico secure a stadium-management deal with CenterplateISG—a company that's worked on Super Bowls, World Series and plethora of new arenas including London's Wembley—to help boost matchday revenue.

Additionally, in January, Atletico announced that Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group had purchased a 20 percent stake in the club for £34.5 million, a move designed to expand the club's global brand.

Throw in the push—though that's all it is at this stage, a push—from the Liga de Futbol Profesional to reduce the inequalities in TV revenue in Spain through a centralised TV-rights model like the one in existence in the Premier League, and Atletico are gradually edging closer and closer to financial competitiveness.

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When Simeone sat down to evaluate his future with Los Colchoneros, those will have been the things he saw. And when Atletico envisaged that path being taken, they will have seen Simeone leading them through it while maintaining the ethos, the fabric, of who they are. 

Now, they've got each other for another five years. Let the building continue. 

"SIMEONE2020."