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For one reason or another, Diego Pablo Simeone has become accustomed to celebrating his birthday with his mind immersed in football.

He did it as a player and takes it to the extreme as a coach.

If a year ago he clenched his teeth, heading for that sharp final sprint that led him to his second League title, on Thursday, the day he turned 52 (he landed at Atlético with 41), he was busy and worried about those five games, on the way to the tenth consecutive adventure in the Champions League.

That match by match, of five days, starts this Saturday in San Mamés (9:00 p.m.), continues with the Metropolitano derby against Real Madrid (perhaps already champion), travels through Elche, as in 2021, and ends in two final rounds against Sevilla, at home, and Real Sociedad, who already prematurely separated him from the Cup in January.

That KO in San Sebastián is now just a bad memory of a rough and winding season, where the Argentine coach has experienced unknown and anomalous situations with Atlético.

The vital constants of the Madrid club happen, yes or yes, for being one of the 32 teams present in the next edition of the Champions League.

Since the arrival of Simeone, being in the great continental competition has become a habit and, also, the only obligation.

A matter of prestige, of course, but, above all, an economic issue.

Cholo has never failed in his previous nine full seasons.

Nor would he have done it on his landing, if the rules had been like the current ones, where the Europa League champion receives an invitation.

The presence in the pot of the group stage ensures an important sum that starts from 15 million.

And the normal thing is that that amount is stretched with joy for the merits on the grass.

The Europe Awards

This season, after reaching the quarterfinals (the eighth had been budgeted), Atlético has pocketed 42.3 million, to which it would be necessary to add about 20 more for the 'market pool' and about 30 for the ranking of coefficients.

More than 90 kilos with which to support the wage bill of a staff that has grown over the years.

If in 2011, when Simeone arrived, his value was just over 200 million, now it is 660, according to the Transfermarkt website.

Without those 90 million conquered in Europe, and without the presence in the next edition of the Champions League, obviously, essential renewals such as that of

Jan Oblak

, who ends his contract in 2023 and earns 10 million net, would be unfeasible.

Just like the continuity of some of the quoted pieces of the squad (Joao or Carrasco, for example).

Also the option, already intricate, of fishing in the market for a carat substitute for

Luis Suárez

.

The freedom of his compatriot

Darwin Núñez

, who dazzles with goals (33) at Benfica, is worth around 70 million.

The suffocation of 2020

"Without the presence in the Champions League, the club could not breathe as it has been doing these years," they remember in the offices of the rojiblanca entity, where, not so long ago, they lived days (and nights) complicated by the effect of the pandemic.

It was just two years ago, with the League yet to resume, and Atlético, at that time, out of the Champions League spots.

A few months later, at the start of the 20/21 academic year, despite the European classification, its economy remained badly wounded.

They still remember in the club that, around those dates, an insinuation of 80 million was floated by

Giménez

from Manchester City.

On the edge of those five games, an Atlético travels in whose offices, stealthily, they continue to negotiate the details of two sponsorships, that of the shirt (now Plus 500) and the 'naming' of the stadium (Wanda expires).

In part, his weight in the coffers of the club will have to do with what happens in this outcome.

At the end of that 14-game league that the rojiblancos started in February, almost on the verge of collapse.

It would be enough for them with 11 points to secure the passport, since they have a margin of four (and goal average) over Betis.

But, Simeone, on the day of his 52nd birthday, did not stop at so much entanglement.

He only thought of San Mamés.

Match by match, year by year.

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