Why 2016 Will Be a Defining Year in Atletico Madrid Manager Diego Simeone's Life

Diego Simeone has that compelling gift that turns his short, punchy statements into an insight into what he’s like on the inside.

Those who recall his playing career probably don’t find that too surprising, of course.

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Simeone was a passionate, fiery midfielder who wore his heart on his sleeve 106 times for Argentina. That heart is big enough that it could probably stretch over to the other sleeve of that famous blue and white jersey, too. And there wouldn’t be much room to spare.

His managerial career has been full of passionate explosions on sidelines Europe-wide, but what you really get a sense of with Simeone is his attachment to Atletico Madrid and his belief that this is the right club—the right "project" to use an annoying football term—for him.

That was evident again in a recent interview Simeone conducted with El Pais, h/t the Guardian, as speculation mounted over his future. With Chelsea lurking post-Jose Mourinho, he said:

"

Why can’t I be here longer? Why did I choose a five-year contract? Because I see a club that is ‘virgin’ and Miguel Ángel [Gil Marín, the chief executive] and Enrique [Cerezo, the president] have the ability to open up new sources to strengthen. It’s not easy to leave Atlético.

More than a team we are a family, and we are a real family. Obviously we have internal problems, there are players who get angry and who will get angry because they don’t play. I am the father and the grandfather is a role for Miguel Ángel Gil and Enrique Cerezo.

We have a potential that no one has. Oblak, Giménez, Vietto, Carrasco, Óliver, Koke, Correa, Saúl, Lucas, Thomas … 10 young players and the veterans are at the perfect age.

"

So far, so stirring, with the use of the term "virgin" again showing just how much Simeone—a man who once praised his players’ mothers for giving his team "big balls" after beating Chelsea in a Champions League semi-final, via the BBC—feels connected to the club. He wants to be Atletico’s special someone that they were saving themselves for.

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But, to paraphrase the experience of Krusty the Clown in an episode of The Simpsons, all of that comes under threat if and when "they" drive a dumptruck full of money up to Simeone’s house.

At the moment "they" are Chelsea, but they could just as easily be Manchester United or even Real Madrid in the summer.

There always seems to come a moment in elite-level football when the richer clubs get what they want, and that is why if—and probably when—Chelsea come calling for Simeone in 2016, then the Argentinean will face the biggest decision of his managerial career.

Does he stay in a division where he’s battling, incredibly impressively, against two gigantic superpowers? Or does he join one of those superpowers elsewhere, in a more competitive environment but safe in the knowledge that if he was to have a good season, then glory would be extremely likely?

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This passionate, fascinating figure is bound to have to wrestle with those emotions should the time come, but he will have an unlikely ally in his corner as he does so.

Peter Kenyon, the English former commercial director and chief executive at both Manchester United and Chelsea, has been working in an advisory capacity at Atletico since 2014, helping the club move out of debt and embracing the types of commercial revenues that they never had before ahead of a planned move to the expanded Estadio La Peineta in 2017.

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As explained by Pete Jenson in the MailOnline, Kenyon has become a vital figure at Atletico, and as a man with first-hand knowledge of what it’s like working for Abramovich, he could doubtless tell Simeone a story or two.

And Simeone would have to weigh up that whole "grass isn’t always greener" idea very carefully. Chelsea’s squad hardly seems in the rudest of health at the moment—there certainly aren’t those 10 young players and veterans of a "perfect" age, at any rate.

Guus Hiddink will doubtless have nursed them back to some form of well-being by the time he takes his bow at the end of his encore in May, but—probably not in the Champions League—will they really be a more attractive option for Simeone than what he’s building at Atletico?

The money will be, of course, and that is what this will ultimately come down to.

Will Simeone’s 2016 see him stay in Madrid and continue what has been some remarkable work or will he follow a path now so well-trodden as to become the norm?

He’d probably like to try and sum it all up in one of those short, sharp statements of his, so here it comes:

Happy New Year, Diego.