Cholo Simeone has worked wonders with Athletico Madrid since taking over. With Los Colchoneros, he made a football force that belongs to the very top of European football. He brought the club two Spanish championship titles, two trophies in the Europa League, two Champions League finals, two European Super Cups, the King’s Cup, the Spanish Super Cup…But it is also true that he is the highest-paid coach in world football with a contract that costs Athletico Madrid 24,000,000 euros gross every year. It is also true that Simeone has made numerous failures in transfer policy in recent years. Which is especially true for offensive players. Only Radamel Falcao and Antoine Griezmann were very successful picks. Which cannot be said for the purchases of Nick Gaitan (25,000,000), Kevin Gameiro (32,000,000), Jackson Martinez (35,000,000), Alvaro Morata (53,000,000), the return of Diego Costa (60,000,000) euros. And neither Thomas Lemar (72,000,000) nor Joao Felix (127,000,000) have justified the huge money so far. Athletico later lost money on most of the mentioned.One of them is the offensive midfielder Vitolo, who was paid 35,600,000 euros to Sevilla in the summer of 2017 and is the seventh most expensive purchase in the history of the club. He was great in Seville, he became a member of the Spanish national team, and as a capital reinforcement, he arrived at Athletic Club, but there he seemed to be shutting down. He may also have been disturbed by the fact that he had to spend the first six months on loan in Las Palmas due to Athletic’s decision at the time.In general, he never repeated the games from Seville in Atletico, nor did he fit into Simeone’s specific style of football. He never even fought for starter status, even though he was paid very well. In three and a half years with Los Colchoneros, he started only 27 championship matches in the starting XI, while he joined from the bench 45 times. He scored only four goals and made six assists.He left the club for free today. He moved on loan to Getafe, where he will complete the last year of his contract with Athletic and become a free agent at the end of the season. This means that the red and whites did not earn a single euro on its sale. But at least they got rid of his huge salary of 6,000,000 euros net per year, which cost them almost twice. The player agreed to reduce his salary by 50 per cent to play in Getafe because the smaller Madrid club could not pay Vitolo what he had in the neighbourhood.He is the first big reinforcement of Getafe this summer, but several more are expected in the coming days. Everything was agreed regarding the transfer of the Serbian stopper Stefan Mitrovic from Strasbourg and the Mexican centre forward Juan Jose Macias from Chivas. Sandro Ramirez from Huesca is also a wish.
