Simeone and Torres: A curious tale of two men

Two stories were told on a frenetic football Saturday in Europe. Stories that played out seemingly independent of each other, but if you looked closely, they drew out a link.
On a day when Fernando Torres did a poor Luis Suarez impersonation and got ejected for his efforts - scratching and pulling at Jan Vertonghen - Diego Simeone was helping put an end to a forbidding 14-year-spell elsewhere.In footballing journeys of redemption, the respective Torres-Simeone sagas continue to be joined at the hip.
After spending years in rival penalty boxes of the Premiership trying to rediscover a now flickering identity against Spurs, Torres yet again realized how much of a lonely struggle it can become when your career hits a plateau.
Only hours later, Simeone was rediscovering his new self - 'Vamos !'-ing away to himself after he took tiny Atletico over to the Bernabeu and finally, finally succeeded in telling Real Madrid their place.
To think, just short of a decade ago, a precociously-talented teenager called Fernando was replacing the battle-hardened Diego as Atletico club captain after the Argentine had lost the dressing room in a player mutiny. As Torres' star immediately rose, Simeone was forced to take the back door out.
On Saturday as their path criss-crossed, it threw light on the significance of Atletico's Madrid derby win. For many on the Real Madrid ground, it is possible that Simeone alone knew and understood the magnitude of this achievement.
The last time they beat Real in the league, Atletico were relegated that season; this time Simeone has fashioned the team into title contenders.
For years, Real toyed with Atletico. The latter would arrive at their rivals' lair, control most of the proceedings, put up a brave performance and yet, watch as the men in white walked off with the three points. Each season, it was a script followed to the letter.
Make no mistake, Atletico aren't the sentimentalist's favourite in Spain. Far from it. They are identified by their scruffy, hard fighting and battling nature of football - admired by few and feared by most.
Hailing from the poorer section of Madrid, it is their unshakeable defiance of the city-based order that wins them grudging admiration.
What would forever rile Atletico is the supposed indifference from Real. For Real, whose main adversary was Barcelona, Atletico were no more than a minor irritant.
It did not help that the one player who was destined for Atletico-bred glory was snapped up by Real, a slight that haunts them. As a boy, Raul Gonzalez - eventually Real's homebred galactico - was a dyed in the wool Atletico supporter, till he was seduced away by Real's lures in the '90s.
Their rough edge then is a manifestation of living under the shadow of the regal entity across the capital. The chip on their shoulder that they then carry on to the pitch, is a temperamental ally and also a historical one.
And no one has exemplified this street-fighting nature better than Diego Simeone in his two event-filled stints at the club - he was at the helm when they won their memorable league and cup double in 1996.
Famously described as one who played his football as if he held a knife between his teeth, Simeone remains somewhat forever emblematic to the Atletico cause.
Today, as Torres plods along about in the Premiership, painfully aware that teams are no longer built around him, Simeone, the quintessential team man, is only just awakening to million possibilities that come with being the man who runs a team - an eager bunch of men only too happy to do his bidding.