Diego Simeone's team are making a right run at the Champions League for the second time in three seasons and Big Sam Allardyce senses a blood brother in Diego.
It gladdens his heart to the earthy Atletico boys mixing it at the summit of European football. He spied an opportunity to lecture the meeja on their sniffiness about defending and teams managed by the likes of him.
They all love Diego Simeone but if he was in the environment in which Sam is cursed to work then he'd be called 'boring'.
It's an art, defending - everybody has forgotten that - it's a tactical art to be able to sense danger and block people's crosses and get your toe in without fouling them now, and they are very, very good at it indeed.
The whole team buys into it. You see Fernando Torres on the edge of his own box defending - you never saw that at Liverpool or Chelsea.
That's how good the manager is and that's why they are successful. They are successful because they concede fewer goals than everybody else and only need one to win in.
Now, everybody can say, "Well, that's not entertaining", but everybody is eulogising Simeone's tactics now. I wouldn't think they would do that in the Premier League so much. "He's boring this guy, he defends too much" - that's what he'd get here.
Naturally, the subtext here is that Big Sam sees a lot of himself in Diego and he wants to make sure the media can see it too.
