Chapter 6
The 100-to-1 Shot

So, would the squad that Miguel Ángel Gil had assembled with the help of investors be enough to give the team a crack at the La Liga title? It seemed unlikely. Atlético Madrid would have to overcome not one but two of the most powerful clubs on the planet. Since 2005, Real Madrid and Barcelona had turned the domestic championship into a duopoly, barely losing a game all season.

Spain's recession was making the competition even more lopsided, as sponsors pulled deals with all but the biggest teams. When Korean carmaker Kia withdrew its €10 million-a-year sponsorship of the Atlético jerseys, Gil could not find a replacement. In 2012, Real Madrid finished first, Barcelona second and there was a huge 30-point gap to the third-placed team, Valencia. Atlético was another five points further back, below Málaga, in fifth place.

As Atlético slipped to a 1-0 home defeat to third-tier Albacete in the Spanish Cup three days before Christmas that season, the rumours were that coach Gregorio Manzano was on the way out. “Olé, olé, olé Cholo Simeone” fans chanted, using the nickname of Diego Simeone, one of the heroes of Atlético's team the last time it won the league in 1996. Gil hired Simeone the next day.

With the club unable to make signings in the January transfer window, Simeone worked with what he had. He instilled a new resolve in the team, turning a lacklustre squad into a determined pack who chased down every ball and relentlessly harried opponents. They played the same way he had some 15 years ago. Dressed in black, with greased-back hair that covered a growing bald patch, Simeone prowled the touchline during matches, barking orders and celebrating goals like he had scored himself. Even in his downtime he was relentless; gym goers in the upmarket suburb of Majadahonda near Atlético's training ground watched in awe as the 43-year-old went through a gruelling routine lifting weights, doing bench presses and pounding the treadmill until 10 p.m.

Behind the scenes in his windowless office at the stadium, Gil was scrabbling to raise finance to pay Atlético's bills. He raised €3 million by transferring 30% of the transfer rights of midfielder Jorge “Koke” Resurrección to the CAA fund managed by Peter Kenyon. Koke was a youth-team graduate who was soon to be called up by Spain's national team.

Gil also cobbled together €4.4 million from another fledgling hedge fund called Doyen Sports. The firm, which was based in London's Mayfair, would receive the money back plus as much as $500,000 interest from an existing kit deal Atlético had with Nike. Under the agreement, the sportswear firm would wire the money directly to Doyen's Swiss bank account from an account in the Amsterdam suburb of Hilversum.

Within weeks, Gil had raised more finance by selling 33% of the transfer rights of star striker Radamel Falcão to the same fund. The deal guaranteed Doyen at least €12 million within two years. Falcão eventually moved to Monaco for €43 million, of which Doyen received €14 million.

Gil made sure he had another striker in reserve when he let Falcão go: Diego Costa, a curly-haired tough from Brazil's poor northeast. Also in the squad that Simeone had inherited and was now whipping into shape was Diego Godin, an old-school central defender from Uruguay who put his body on the line each game and Arda Turan, the midfielder who had arrived from Turkey.

The revitalized team's first success came in May 2013, and it could not have been sweeter. Atlético won 2-1 at Real Madrid to win the Spanish Cup for the first time since 1996, before finishing third in the league to qualify directly for Europe's Champions League for the first time in 17 years. After beating Real, Simeone said his team was giving hope to Spaniards losing their homes, their jobs and their dignity during the recession. “We are an example for the people who are suffering and for whom nothing is going right,” Simeone said. “With hard work come opportunities.”

The following season, Atlético won its first seven league games for the first time in its 110-year history and ended the year atop the standings. Few people believed it could last. Bloomberg Sports, a data company, using an algorithm of past performances and player transfer values, predicted before the start of the season that Atlético had a 1% chance of winning the league. The entire squad was worth less than the £80 million fee Real Madrid paid for Cristiano Ronaldo. But Atlético kept defying the odds. El Pais newspaper christened Simeone's work ethic as “cholismo”, after his nickname. If Spain had an icon in the depth of the worst economic crisis in its history, it was the 44-year-old from Buenos Aires, the newspaper said.

More often than not when Gil turned on the radio or took a call while driving around the M30 ring road, his team would have just chalked up another win. Atlético players contested every ball, out-tackling their opponents. Nike erected a giant poster on the front of the Vicente Calderón stadium using one of Simeone's mantras: “Play Every Game Like It's Your Last One.”

With three of the 38 games to go, Atlético looked to be heading for its first league title in 18 years. But then suddenly the players appeared to get stage fright and stumbled to a 2-0 loss at Levante and a 1-1 draw at home to Málaga. And so, on 17 May 2014, it all came down to the last day of the season. Gil's team needed a draw at Barcelona to clinch its first title since his father celebrated the 1996 triumph by riding into Madrid on a white horse and jumping into a bathtub filled with champagne.

On that final day of the season, Gil spent the warm spring morning at the team hotel, the Fairmont Rey Juan Carlos I, trying to overcome mounting nerves by discussing with colleagues who they would replace Costa and on-loan goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois with. Atlético could not hold on to the Brazilian striker because his blistering form was triggering big-money offers from England. Meanwhile, Chelsea wanted its in-form Belgian goalie to return.

At 2 p.m., four hours before kick-off, Gil and his directors headed to an uncomfortable lunch with their counterparts at Barcelona and the mayors of Spain's biggest cities. Beset by nerves, they had little appetite for the elaborate multi-course meal and political chit-chat. When the lunch was over, most of the directors of both clubs headed to Barcelona's cavernous Camp Nou stadium. The players made the trip on a bus with a police escort, edging slowly past tens of thousands of fans.

At 5.55 p.m. the teams ran out on the field in front of 98,000 fans. With Barcelona members taking up most of the allocation of tickets, there were 447 Atlético fans in one corner of the arena. They were outnumbered 220 to 1. On two sides of the stadium fans held up the burgundy and blue colours of the home team and on the other two sides they raised the red and yellow of the Catalan flag. They sang in Catalan the club anthem – We're Barça – whose lyrics included the lines “We've shown them all, we've shown them all, that we can never be defeated.”

His heart racing, Gil slipped away from the noise. He took a taxi to Barcelona's Sants station and found a seat in a half-empty compartment on the high-speed train to Madrid. To calm his beating heart, he gulped two pills and started to watch a movie – The Company Men. Starring Ben Affleck and Kevin Costner, the film is about the financial crisis and three men who are downsizing after losing their jobs. As the train picked up speed to 190 miles-per-hour through the rocky landscape around Zaragoza, dotted with lakes and pine trees, Gil managed to block out what was happening in the match. A ticket inspector asked if he wanted to know the score. “No thanks,” he said.

It was not going well. Costa pulled up with a hamstring injury after 13 minutes and then, before half-time, Barcelona's Lionel Messi chested down the ball into the path of Alexis Sanchez, who fired Barcelona into a 1-0 lead. A friend called Gil to let him know.

As half-time approached, the few Atlético fans in the stadium started bracing themselves for missing out on the title on the last day of the season. But then, four minutes into the second half, Atlético's captain Godin headed into the net from a corner to make it 1-1. Television cameras picked out one Atlético fan jumping up and down on the spot and screaming deliriously.

On the train, Gil could no longer hold back his curiosity and turned on his mobile phone, clicking on a La Liga app. He saw what half of Spain already knew – Atlético was back on course for the title. He kept his eyes trained on the small screen for the next 40 minutes.

Messi had a goal disallowed but by the time the train pulled into Madrid's Atocha station at dusk, there was no further score and Atlético Madrid was league champion. Gil tried not to show his emotion as he walked calmly to the taxi rank, but he felt like punching the air as all the stress of the last few months gave way to delight.

As tradition dictated, thousands of Atlético fans gathered to celebrate in Madrid's Neptune Square, a downtown plaza which has a statue of the Greek god of the sea in the centre. The square is next to the Ritz Hotel and Prado museum, which houses a fabulous art collection worth billions of euros, including “Las Meninas”, the 17th-century masterpiece by Diego Velázquez. It was an unlikely setting for Atlético's working-class fans.

Gil did not join them as his father had two decades previously. And there would be no champagne bath either. Later that night he celebrated more sensibly with the players at the Asador Donostiarra restaurant close to the Real Madrid stadium. On starched white tablecloths, they gorged themselves on jamón ibérico (Spanish cured ham), rioja wine and steak. The dinner ended in the early hours of the morning with sweets, liqueurs, drunken backslapping and embraces. Almost everyone attributed the success to Simeone. Still, Gil praised himself; he had hired the inspirational coach and picked the right players in the transfer market. “It's something I've been doing for 20 years,” he said.

The season was not over. A week later, Atlético faced Real Madrid in the Champions League in Lisbon in its first elite European final since 1974 after eliminating Barcelona and Chelsea. Tens of thousands of madrileños made the 300-mile road trip to Lisbon. The city's hotels were booked up. Atlético and Real Madrid fans flocked into the 60,000-seat Estádio da Luz stadium together. Some Atlético supporters wore red and white shirts from the 1990s with “Marbella” on the front, a legacy of the Jesús Gil era. If Atlético won, it would be the club with the least financial resources since FC Porto to take the elite European title.

Atlético, skilfully maintaining possession, took a first-half lead on another Godin header. The underdog appeared to be heading to its first Champions League title, before a loss of concentration in the third minute of stoppage time allowed Sergio Ramos to equalize with a header. The roar from Real Madrid fans was deafening after 93 minutes of pent-up frustration.

Ramos's late goal felt like a kick in the gut to Simeone's men. The team collapsed in extra time. Gareth Bale made it 2-1 after pouncing when Atlético goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois parried a shot. Real Madrid substitute Marcelo ran through the exhausted defence and fired in another goal and Ronaldo made it 4-1 with a penalty kick. He tore off his shirt and posed for the cameras like the Incredible Hulk.

With his team in tatters, Simeone sprinted onto the field to confront Real Madrid's French defender Raphaël Varane, whom he accused of disrespectfully kicking the ball towards him and his colleagues. Held back by several Atlético players, Simeone received a red card. After almost tasting victory, the game ended in ignominy.

Michel Platini, a fierce opponent of the debt-laden business model Atlético has adopted, handed the silver trophy to Real Madrid captain Iker Casillas with a grin on his face. Platini, standing next to his right-hand man Gianni Infantino, patted his French compatriot Karim Benzema on the back. An hour later, journalists from around the world applauded Simeone as he arrived for a post-match news conference. “I feel bruised but not sadness,” he said. “I'm proud of the extraordinary season we've had.”

A few hundred metres away, Real Madrid's president Florentino Pérez – still immaculate in grey suit, monogrammed shirt and tie – congratulated his players on the team's first Champions League title since 2002. It had got through roughly $1 billion in transfer fees since then. Asked if the team would pare back spending now, Pérez's director Pedro Lopez said “that's enough” before adding a proviso, “but the summer is just starting”.

Pérez and Lopez left the stadium together in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven Audi A8 estate, and would soon be plotting their next assault on club football's biggest prize.

Two months later, Real Madrid signed Colombian playmaker James Rodriguez, one of the stars of the World Cup, from Monaco for as much as $100 million. That meant Pérez has been responsible for four of the five most expensive signings in football history. The other belonged to Barcelona, which added Luis Suárez from Liverpool for about $80 million.

Meanwhile, Gil had to juggle with back taxes, interest charges and payments to transfer right investors. He traded top scorer Diego Costa to Chelsea for some $50 million to service debt, marking another payday for the Brazilian's agent Jorge Mendes, who had brought him to Madrid in flip-flops eight years earlier.

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Jorge Mendes is on a 350-mile road trip. It's a summer's day and he's driving fast through the parched land of central Spain. His Porsche slides past the isolated medieval towns of Ávila and Salamanca and vast expanses of uninhabited land used for little else than the rearing of fighting bulls and the production of cured ham. For much of the deserted motorway between Madrid and Oporto, the road narrows into a dual carriageway and Mendes steps on the accelerator to weave past lumbering trucks heading in both directions. He chats to his flame-haired girlfriend, Sandra, who is in the passenger seat, about their plans for the future.

It's 2002 and Mendes, who is 36, is working hard to get himself known as a football player agent. He knows it is important to mix among the leading coaches and executives, and that is why he is racing to get home to grab some rest before catching scheduled flights to London and then Manchester to meet Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson. He will be representing Ricardo Lopez, a goalkeeper from Madrid whom Ferguson is interested in recruiting from Real Zaragoza.

Suddenly, the rhythm of the journey is interrupted: an axle clanks off a truck in front of his car and Mendes swerves to avoid the huge piece of metal and loses control. The Porsche spins into a guardrail, and the airbags open. Stunned but still conscious, Mendes takes a few moments to understand what has just happened. He checks Sandra is also okay and climbs out of the vehicle with his face bloodied. One of his first thoughts is the meeting with Ferguson. An ambulance arrives and takes the couple to hospital for a check-up. Skin has been torn from his ear but there are no serious injuries.

Mendes leaves and gets back on the road to Oporto's Francisco de Sá Carneiro airport. As the TAP airline takes off and flies over Spain's Basque country he is dabbing the raw skin of his damaged ear to stop blood dripping onto his suit. The plane lands at London and he takes a second flight to Manchester. After shaking hands with Ferguson, he takes a seat with an assortment of agents and representatives of both clubs to thrash out a deal. Mendes surreptitiously dabs at the wound, shifting his side to Ferguson so the Manchester United manager cannot see what he is doing. But Mendes is only a bit-part player in the swift negotiations and Ferguson barely notices him.

A few years earlier Mendes had been earning a living by running a video rental store in a nondescript arcade on the outskirts of the northern Portuguese town of Viana do Castelo. He also played for the local amateur team. As a sideline he would sell advertising space on hoardings at the team's tiny stadium, but before long he set himself the goal of representing more talented teammates in the world of professional football.

At the age of 27, he would make a 300-mile round trip several times a week to try and place goalkeeper Nuno Espírito Santo, across the border in Spain at Deportivo La Coruna. On arriving, he went to the offices of the club's president Augusto Lendoiro unannounced. Sometimes, Lendoiro would have time to talk at a restaurant by the stadium overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. On other occasions, Lendoiro would make his excuses and Mendes would have wasted his journey and petrol money.

When he got the chance, Mendes would mine the amiable former politician for information about the football business. At the time, Deportivo was a powerhouse in Spain and Lendoiro had signed Brazilian striker Bebeto and defender Mauro Silva to help the team take on Real Madrid and Barcelona. Lendoiro would recount tales such as how he had travelled to Brazil with pictures of the beach in La Coruna to coax Bebeto into joining his club rather than Borussia Dortmund, which was also trying to sign him. In Germany, Lendoiro told him, it always rained. Perched on the edge of northwest Spain, La Coruna was hardly sun-kissed but Bebeto settled in quickly and scored 86 goals over the next four years.

Mendes eventually persuaded Lendoiro to sign Espírito Santo from Vitoria Guimarães as a reserve keeper, and the rookie Portuguese agent had his first break. That gave him more credibility and persuaded more players to use him as their agent. Mendes still affectionately calls Lendoiro “padrino” (godfather) for giving him his first break, and the two speak regularly by phone.

One of Mendes's growing stable of clients was a 17-year-old Sporting Clube de Portugal player called Cristiano Ronaldo, whom he persuaded to join him. With the supremely talented teenager as one of his clients, Jorge Mendes did not have to go running around to meetings any more. Manchester United's Ferguson came to see him and his teenage client instead. In the Lisbon seaside suburb of Cascais in the summer of 2002, Ferguson persuaded Ronaldo to sign for United rather than Juventus, Real Madrid or Arsenal.

As Mendes became more influential, he began to take a financial interest in the transfer rights of some of the players he represented. In December 2006, a 19-year-old Brazilian stepped off a plane wearing flip-flops to be greeted by temperatures of −4°C in Madrid. Diego Costa had raw talent but had not received any coaching until the age of 15. He also had a quick temper and easily got into fights. Mendes had organized for the raw striker to come to Europe to mature. He took a 30% share in his transfer rights with Sporting Braga, which in its accounts called the arrangement an investment partnership. It was the start of Mendes's participation in the transfer rights business and a friendship with the Portuguese club's president Antonio Salvador. Over the coming years he would acquire the rights of more than half a dozen South American players in deals involving Braga.

Costa initially struggled to adapt to the colder weather in the north of Portugal and was homesick for his family and home-cooked rice, beans and barbecued meat. But Atlético saw enough talent in the raw striker and Miguel Ángel Gil agreed to sign him, acquiring 50% of his transfer rights for €1.5 million.

Both Braga and Mendes retained a share in Costa's transfer rights, and as he became accustomed to life in Spain his form improved and the agent's bet paid out for everyone involved with his $50 million move to Chelsea.

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