Would Managing Inter Milan Be the Right Next Step for Diego Simeone?

It was February 2013, and while Diego Simeone was plotting a Copa del Rey success with Atletico Madrid—which would morph into an unforgettable title triumph the following season—he still had something else on his mind.

"Sooner or later, I will coach Inter," he told Gazzetta dello Sport (via Matt Domm of Sports Mole).

"Even before going to Atletico, I always said that one day I would return as manager. Everything happens in its time, but surely one day I'll see you in Milan."

It was a statement he repeated to Mediaset in April this year (via Ben Gladwell ESPN FC) and then again a few weeks later just a few weeks before leading Atletico Madrid into the Champions League final, when he said, per Gladwell:

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"We've exchanged a few words on the phone, and as I've always said, and I have no fear of saying it again now, one day I will return to Milan because I did well there and left a great memory there, and I have the objective of going back as coach."

As far as outright flirtation goes, it is right up there. Simeone’s son Giovanni, a forward for Serie A club Genoa, recently added further fuel to that particularly raging fire when he told Onda Cero (via Marca): "My father's move to Inter will happen one day. At least I hope it does. He is very happy at Atletico, but a switch to Inter could happen in the future."

So that’s that, then. A case of when and not if, with Simeone’s decision to shorten his Atleti contract by two years earlier this season another sign of his desire to move on sooner rather than later.

Plenty with Atletico sympathies took that move as a sign of Simeone’s honesty, with his passion for his club shining through as he sought to clarify a situation for them and allow them ample time to prepare to find a successor.

And it is nice to think such a thing.

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Simeone inspires such positive emotion because of his passionate demeanour and will to win at all costs, with Atleti fans seeing him as some sort of deity because he’s elevated the club from La Liga also-rans to two-time Champions League finalists and, of course, title-winners ahead of Barcelona and Real Madrid in 2013/14.

The job that he has done at the Vicente Calderon has been nothing short of remarkable.

Few other elite clubs in world football wear their manager’s attitude more than Atleti do. Simeone cares for his team, his players and his fans so much—perhaps sometimes too much—and when they do eventually part ways, it will be an emotional occasion for all involved.

This season’s patchy form has led to some speculation that he could leave the club a year earlier than initially advertised, although it would likely take a huge deterioration in results for that to happen.

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Simeone wants to exit Atletico on his own terms, and he has earned the right to do just that. But would Inter be the right move?

In February 2013, when he first mentioned that desire to one day coach the Serie A giants, the club were fourth in Italy’s top flight.

Now they sit 10th, lurching through an awful campaign in which they have already been knocked out of the Europa League following four defeats in five games—losing at home and away to the Israeli side Hapoel Be'er Sheva, as well as to Sparta Prague from the Czech First League and Southampton of the Premier League.  

The club’s Indonesian president, Erick Thohir, has gone from a figure the club’s fans hoped they could get behind to one who seems to be mistrusted, while there have been issues between the club’s fans and the captain Mauro Icardi, by far Inter’s best player.

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Plenty would be looking at the situation at the club and feeling that it would be best to steer clear of it and that he should move to a higher-profile team to further his managerial career before joining Inter, but Simeone won’t be seeing that.

He’ll be seeing the team he left Atletico for when he was a player in 1997, the one he won the UEFA Cup with in his first season, when he played alongside the likes of Ronaldo, Javier Zanetti and Ivan Zamorano in a side that beat future employers Lazio in the final.

Clearly, Inter mean a lot to Simeone, and there would be a certain symmetry about his career if he were to leave Atletico for Inter for a second time—this time as a manager.

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Perhaps the stasis at Inter, for whom Stefano Pioli is the head coach—the club’s fourth manager of this year alone and 10th since Jose Mourinho led them to the Champions League in 2010—is simply a case of them waiting for Simeone to become available.

The Argentinian might see similarities at Inter to the situation he walked into at Atletico in December 2011, when the team were struggling in mid-table in La Liga and had just been knocked out of the Copa del Rey by third-tier side Albacete. Six months later, he had led them to the Europa League.

But this season, it has started to look as though things have gone a little stale for the manager.

Those Champions League final defeats to Real Madrid in 2014 and then again earlier this year might well have had a huge effect on him, and he could just need a new challenge to get going again. Perhaps this shouldn’t be seen as a next step for his career but more the right step for his personality.

At Inter, he’d certainly face the challenges head-on.

There are bound to be what others will see as more attractive jobs available in the coming 18 months—if he is to see out his Atletico contract for the next 18 months—but if Simeone doesn’t have the feel for the club or the bond with the fans, then it's almost not even worth considering.

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This is a man like few others in football, and perhaps he almost sees it as his duty to revive the slumbering giant that is Inter.

The day he does depart, the Spanish capital will be a sad one for all of the Atletico supporters who have taken Cholo to their hearts, but Inter look to be a challenge and a club that he simply cannot turn down.

He seemed to have decided long ago that he would manage the Nerazzurri upon leaving his current club, so the question now has to be, what will Atletico look like when he does leave?

Whatever that is, they’ll certainly be richer for the experience.