Diego Simeone has revealed that he asked Luis Suarez to contact his former teammate Lionel Messi to know if he was open to joining Atletico Madrid after his contract at Barcelona expired.
The six-time Ballon d’Or winner left Barcelona in the summer transfer window for Paris Saint-Germain but reportedly could have liked up with Suarez at Atlético Madrid.
Suarez and Messi share a good bond and were together in Barcelona for six years before Suarez signed for Atletico Madrid two summers ago.
And now Simeone has revealed he tried using Suarez’s relationship with Messi as bait to bring the Argentine to the capital.
Speaking to South American Sports news outlet Ole, Simeone said:
“I didn’t call Leo, but I did call Luis, to ask him how Messi was doing, whether he fancied it and whether there was the slightest chance of him coming to Atlético,”
“It was something that lasted three hours because PSG already had their hearts set on signing him.
“So the chance to work with Messi has never come up. He was always at Barca [before joining PSG], I’ve been at Atletico, and we didn’t coincide as players in the Argentina national team.”
Simeone said he hoped the striker would be open to moving to the capital club because they could compete for silverware.
“If you ask me where Messi has to play, I’ll say in a team that wants to win,” he added.
“In a team that knows what it needs to do to win. It doesn’t matter what position he plays; what matters is that the team is set up to win.
“Don’t think about him. Think about the team.”
When he was asked if he had any direct contact with Messi, Simeone said:
“No, nothing at all; it was like watching a plane go by in the sky.”
