the Irish Matt Doherty has been presented this Wednesday as a new Atlético de Madrid player, from on loan from Tottenham for the next six months. However, the 31-year-old right-back’s relationship with the rojiblanco club goes back a long time, as Doherty He has been following Atleti from a distance for many years as one more fan, as he himself has boasted during the presentation ceremony.
“It is a pleasure. I’ve been admiring this club for a long time. You can see it in my tweets, over the years I have supported them. I like the family atmosphere among his fans and when the opportunity came, it was something I couldn’t say no to”, the footballer began commenting. Indeed, Doherty has shared his passion for Atleti on some occasion on his social networks, with two messages in particular that have dazzled to his new hobby.
“I’m excited to see Atlético play“, he came to write in May 2016, although his most successful tweet is from the same day that the mattress team played their last Champions League final so far. May 28 of that year, before a bitter final game was played for athletic fans against the eternal rival, Doherty wrote a message of support for what seven years later is his team: “Athletic to the end, come on guys!“.
Unfortunately for him and for the entire mattress parish, that final fell again to the Madrid side, in a penalty shootout. Nevertheless, the first Irishman in the history of Atleti He remembers the athletic Champions League nights fondly: “It made me admire them when they played the Champions League against English teams. I like the passion of the fans, I always admired how the coach prepared his team in the face of difficulties. When the opportunity came I couldn’t turn it down it is a real pleasure to be here“.
His new reinforcement for the rear also spoke about Simeone: “I see it as an opportunity to improve myself, to work with a world-class coach.. It’s football, trying to improve and trying to improve my team.” In his first meeting with ‘Cholo’, he also confessed what his first talk was:” My message was that here I am, I’m strong, I’m ready to play on the right, on the left, in the center… I will work as hard as possible for him, for the club and for the team. I’m ready to help.”
In that line, wearing his dorsal 12 Together with Enrique Cerezo at the Civitas Metropolitano, he also did not hesitate to leave the door open to his continuity in the club beyond the loan: “I’ll be there until the end of the season but it doesn’t have to be the end. It’s going to depend on me, in principle it’s six months and we’ll see what happens later.”
