• Germán Burgos. "I'm going to look for my dream"
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In eight and a half years at Atlético, Germán Burgos (Mar del Plata, 1969) has been seen fatter or thinner, as now. With unkempt or unkempt hair. With or without glasses. But always whispering football in Diego Pablo Simeone's ear. And always, too, giving a smile when they ask him about soccer. With that same gesture of happiness he announced yesterday, in an interview to the club, the goodbye that had been expected for months. Only that the Covid-19 crisis partially altered his plans: he would have liked to do it when the team had closed the course and, perhaps, lifting a trophy. And it is long since in his head, just turned 51, haunted the idea of ​​flying alone and leaving the sweet shelter of his friend Simeone: "I have had lunch and dinner more with him than with my family."

Precisely the irrepressible nerve of Cholo in the band has allowed him to command Atlético on 18 occasions (13 wins, three draws and two defeats). The last one, on February 23, against Villarreal (3-1), in the Metropolitano. Who knows if he will still have to do it one last time in this atypical summer closing of the season. Its premiere, at the start of the 2014/15 season, came in Vallecas, just after winning the Spanish Super Cup, where Simeone was sent off for giving a catch to the fourth referee.

He led the team in the assault on that title at the Calderón, just as in the 2018 Europa League final in Lyon and the European Super Cup in Tallinn. "He is a person who has given us more than anyone can imagine," was the praise on Fernando Torres' social networks, who met him as a companion, when he was just a Boy taking off, and met him again as a student, for three and a half years.

"It always had a lot of influence"

They say in the sports city of Majadahonda that, on more than one occasion, Burgos, responsible for a good part of the winks of strategy that Atlético has shown, appeared at night, after a game, to scrutinize any detail that could be useful for the future. “He always had a lot of influence on changes during the game. He is ready to train alone, "say those who have agreed with him.

At Carabanchel they remember his intense months as head coach. He lost 20 kilos, rose to Preferred and, shortly after starting the next season, he left because the results were not as expected. There they do not forget their chronometer, always hanging around their necks like an amulet, and their obsessions, not only tactics. "When he won, if he had had coffee in a bar, he would come back before the next game," Manuel Remedo , Teja , his second in the field of La Mina , told this newspaper a few months ago .

At the Mono Burgos it will be remembered for that Atletico put counterpoint to the volcanic nature of Simeone. In those 18 games that he has lived as a circumstantial head of the locker room, he has barely escaped a sporadic cry to correct his players. Everything was written down in his notebook so that when he played, he could readjust the lines and, if necessary, modify the game system. Because in tactical and strategic matters, few like him.

"What are you talking about? Use your head"

As a rule, he has always tried to convey calm and good vibes. Like in those training sessions in which he encouraged Diego Costa in his own way or kept yelling at Tomás . That's how he has always called Thomas Partey and that's how he said goodbye to him in that interview in the club media. Although a volcano is always difficult to plug. How to forget that scream of yours at the Santiago Bernabéu (2012) to José Mourinho , just a year after landing on the athletic bench. "I am not Tito, I will rip your head off!" Words that, after the game, I would justify with a simple smile.

One of the players who is most grateful to him is Saúl Ñíguez . After damaging his kidney at Leverkusen, the youth squad had to insert a catheter. However, the pains conditioned his game. He thought to take it off, but Burgos erased that idea: «The doctor says that you are thinking of risking your kidney. You have 22 years! What are you talking about? Use your head ».

And so a good handful of stories that Germán now takes to another place, which will not be revealed long. His emptiness will try to fill Nelson Vivas . "I'm going to look for my dream," said Burgos, excited, although with his mind set on this season finale. He doesn't want to leave without a last drink under his arm.

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