Diego Simeone has revealed he turned down a €35million (£30million) offer to leave Atletico Madrid last summer — but stopped short of saying who from.
Atleti suffered Champions League heartache in May after losing out to local rivals Real in the final for the second time in three years. Soon after, Simeone was approached by another European club — believed to be Paris Saint-Germain — about taking charge.
In the end, his affinity to the club persuaded him to remain at the Vicente Calderon, and he has no regrets.
Speaking about last May’s defeat, he told AS: “I got to the press room and had to go through the area where Real Madrid were celebrating and I felt a lot of pain, and I started to think that this was going to be a difficult year and it would be hard to motivate my players again.
“I said what I felt, that I needed to think about it. Is that so bad? You have to remember if I wanted to go to another team I would have had 35 million reasons. 35 million! But I didn’t leave because I didn’t want to.”
