Simeone reveals how he tried to bring Messi to Atletico Madrid

Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone has admitted he did try to find out if there was any possibility Lionel Messi was interested in a move to the Wanda Metropolitano in the summer.

Simeone says he didn’t get in touch with Messi himself but did ask Luis Suarez to put in a call to his good friend and try to figure out if there was any chance he could be tempted to swap Barca for Atletico.

“I’ll tell you a detail,” he said. “When what happened now at Barcelona happened, we called Luis (Suarez), with all due respect.

“I didn’t call Leo, but I did call Luis, and I asked him to find out how he was, what he thought, if there was the slightest possibility, imagining that he could come to Atlético de Madrid.

“But that lasted three hours. Paris Saint-Germain were obviously obsessed with the signing.

“The truth is that we didn’t have the chance to meet because he was always at Barcelona, and we were always at Atlético de Madrid, and neither were we at the national team.”

Source | Ole

Messi admitted in an interview with France Football over the weekend that he was contacted by various clubs and “had other offers” but was able to come to an agreement quickly with Paris Saint-Germain.