Until he wants. This was reported by Football Director Carlos Bucero months ago, when the captain and player with more matches in the history of the club (667) signed the last contract that expires on June 30. Burse came to tell Koke (Madrid, 33 years old), according to club sources, who wants to continue playing football should do it in Atlético. The entity considers that the best final for the midfielder would be to end his career in the club where he entered with 8 years and in which he has become a living legend. Closeing the circle of his career as rojiblanco would be to write an emotional and identity story for both the player and the club.
According to knowledgeable sources of the negotiations, automatic renewal clauses according to a certain number of matches played. Buero considered that, due to his career, Koke does not deserve to depend on such agreements that sometimes get poisoned. In Atlético they say they did not want their captain to support the pressure of whether he plays more or less to prolong his contract.
The initiative taken with Koke has become an exception with this kind of life renewal. Atlético has the standard, imposed by Simeone in 2016, to renew the players who exceed thirty.
In the case of the footballer raised in Vallecas, it will be so, but with the difference that, if he chooses to remain, the club will not oppose. The last illustrious veterans who saw themselves in that situation, such as Gabi, Godín, Fernando Torres, Filipe Luis and Juanfran, did not enjoy that privilege. With the exception of Koke, an exemplary player wanted to reward the 553 Adeldo games, a record that seemed unattainable. Both parties remained in the final part of the course to establish the negotiation of the amount to be received.
She was more at odd. There was media noise about it because for the first time Koke was planted in January without signing a new agreement. The club applied to the Captain the generalized salary reduction policy, in its case of almost 50% to be one of the players that most perceived from the squad. At first, Koke did not accept such a large reduction and the parts took time. It was in March when the one year agreement was completed and to review it at the end of each season.
It will be Koke who will have to decide if he continues at the end of this season in which for the first time it is not untouchable for Simeone. The growth of Pablo Barrios and in the last two months they have relegated him to the bench, although tonight, in the absence of Moratalaz’s steering wheel, he is emerging as a headline in a duel against Salzburg in which Atlétic First of the Liguilla of the first phase. If achieved, the rojiblancos would avoid disputing the round of seventeenisavos that will play the classified between the ninth position and the twenty -sufficient.
Koke began the season as a starter, but fell from the lineups during the game pothole and results that Atlético suffered between the end of September and the last days of October. His first significant substitution was against Paris Saint Germain in the Park of the Princes (1-2). Since then, he has only started in four games, the last against Villarreal (1-1). However, Koke is the sixth player of the squad in disputed minutes (1,249).
The reaction of the captain has not been to twist the gesture to the coach before his new role, but that does not mean that he does not want and that he does not believe, like all the players, that he can play more than he does. Their behavior, they assure in the club and in the costumes, is marking the coexistence of headlines and alternates in the house for good. This has been one of the keys that allowed the coach and the squad to dodge the first bad streak of results. In each game, players such as Sorloth, Correa, Llorente, Azpilicueta, Riquelme, Lino and Koke himself can appear on the Atlético bench. Among the least common are voices that point to the fate that Simeone has that all are players with a correct behavior to assume the decisions of the technician and give the example of. In that meeting, Simeone played with most headlines. Some substitutes thought it could have rotated a little more and reasoned that with more conflicting players that decision could have generated a fire in any team.
Koke leads this generalized acceptance of coach’s decisions when making alignments and managing changes during the matches. He is trying to give an example, although he does not resign to assault the ownership again. Today, in Bucólica Salzburg, he has another chance for it.
