Diego set to celebrate 100th cap
Diego set to celebrate 100th cap
BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters): His name is Diego and he is the most capped player in Argentine soccer history.
But he is not Maradona. He is Diego Simeone, who is expected to win his 100th cap for Argentina against Venezuela on Tuesday after a 13-year career at the heart of his country's midfield.
Few players can have clocked up a century of caps for a major soccer nation with so little fuss.
While Maradona generally wins the plaudits as Argentina's greatest ever player and Gabriel Batistuta holds the all-time Argentine scoring record, Simeone seldom takes the limelight.
Notoriously combative on the pitch and reserved off it, the man known as "El Cholo" -- a reference to his mixed European and indigenous South American blood -- is always quick to deflect the praise onto someone else.
"If I think about Maradona it puts me to shame," 30-year-old Simeone told reporters on the eve of his 99th cap -- against Italy on his home turf at Rome's Olympic Stadium last month.
"He was a Martian. He was so good that he could be with us still today, even at the age of 40."
"I, on the other hand, am just a warrior, a fighter who aims to give everything. But even Diego will be pleased for me (to win 100 caps). He knows how much I love the national team."
Simeone is the only Argentine to have won the league title in both Italy and Spain -- the countries of choice for generations of Argentines seeking to build careers in Europe.
And he has done it with previously unfashionable teams.
He won the Spanish title with Atletico Madrid in 1996, helping to break the grip, albeit temporarily, of Real Madrid and Barcelona on the coveted crown.
Simeone then came to Italy and last May helped Lazio to only the second title in its history and its first in 26 years.
His international career started in the late 1980s but in 1990, like Maradona in 1978, he suffered the disappointment of being left out of the Argentine squad for the World Cup finals.
"I was a 20-year-old and I was left out of the final 22 at the last minute. It was a big blow," he recalled.
Nevertheless, he earned a move to Italy that summer, joining Pisa, which was then in Serie A.
The Tuscan was relegated that year but Simeone stuck with it, just as Batistuta was to do with Fiorentina when it went down to the Italian second division two years later.
In 1992, Simeone joined Maradona at Seville and from there went to Madrid, where he was the heartbeat of an Atletico side which won the title against all odds.
In 1997 he moved to Inter, where he won the UEFA Cup, and then came to Lazio where he has formed a formidable midfield partnership with the equally uncompromising Juan Veron.
On April 1 last year he scored a goal which many feel swung the title Lazio's way.
The Rome club was trailing Juventus by nine points with seven matches to play when Simeone headed home the only goal in a stunning win at Juventus.
The Turin side subsequently crumbled and Simeone scored a goal in each of Lazio's last four league matches to help the Roman wrench the scudetto away from the northern clubs.
One of the toughest tacklers in the business, Simeone has not always been appreciated by his opponents.
He was widely condemned for faking injury in a now infamous incident at the 1998 World Cup, when he collapsed after being clipped on the calf by England's David Beckham.
Beckham was sent off for the offense while Simeone got up and helped Argentina complete an epic quarterfinals victory over its old enemy.