World-class Simeone brings Mourinho’s Bridge crashing down

After a week of great big debates about the rise and fall of opposing football philosophies, this semi-final was ultimately settled by the smallest and most elementary of details: a defender switching off, one clumsy challenge, a player losing his man.

Just like with Real Madrid at Bayern Munich the previous night, that was the real difference: Atletico Madrid went about their basic jobs with much more intensity than Chelsea. It meant they were better in virtually every area of the pitch.

It wasn’t a failure of attacking or defensive football, but a failure of application. That will trouble Jose Mourinho most of all.

At the same time, there can be little disputing Chelsea’s inherently defensive approach cost them, that they paid a price for such a negative display in the first leg. That has always been the deeper problem with more pragmatic football.

For all that Mourinho’s tactics are based on waiting to expose the errors of the opposition, the nature of more conservative football is that the effect of your own mistakes are completely maximised because you can’t score enough to compensate.

That was precisely the case here, as reflected by the feeling that the contest almost ended once Atletico got the key away goal, as well as the complete emasculation of Eden Hazard. It said much that the influence of Chelsea’s most exciting player was reduced to making the defensive errors that cost his team.

Mourinho’s game plan, meanwhile, was reduced to rubble. That will be equally galling. Because, for about eight minutes, it looked like the Portuguese couldn’t have scripted this match any better.

His gambit of playing Fernando Torres paid off, with the Spaniard scoring against his old club. That ensured a counter-attacking team had to come out and attack. Chelsea were left to defend a lead, just as Mourinho would have liked it, and just as his teams have so successfully done on so many occasions. The Portuguese has a supreme record in making sure to win games once ahead.

Here, it let him down, exposing the basic deficiencies of the approach. In stark contrast to Sunday’s 2-0 win at Liverpool, Chelsea failed to defend the most basic situation in football: a set-piece. Their backline fell asleep, Atletico re-awakened with Adrian Lopez’s away goal.

Diego Simeone’s side had the away-goal that Chelsea lacked. They also had the sense of urgency and adventure that Chelsea lacked.

Because, although the home side immediately attempted to sit on their lead, Atletico were still willing to surge forward once they had the initiative. It exposed more Chelsea mistakes, as Diego Costa thundered home a penalty and Arda Turan got the clincher his persistence deserved.

It also touched on that deeper debate about philosophies. Ultimately, Atletico were not just a counter-attacking side, they were not on either side of this grand discussion. They were bang in the middle, flexibly using elements of both.

It also reflects the freshness of the bounding Simeone as a manager, in contrast to the laboured response of Mourinho. The Argentine should no longer be talked of as the successor to the Portuguese. He is a proper world-class manager in his own right, who is now the coach to come closest to replicating Mourinho’s 2004 victory with Porto, by guiding as financially limited a club as Atletico to the final.

That does not mean Mourinho is yesterday’s man, it does not mean Chelsea played yesterday’s approach.

It could just do with a bit more attacking sophistication and, on this occasion, a bit more application.