Simeone faces his most difficult challenge yet

Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid face off in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium on what will become the first step of Diego Simeone’s toughest challenge to date with the Colchoneros.

This will be the third full season the Argentine manager will lead Atletico Madrid, and as it’s happened in the past two summers, his squad has changed significantly.

This time around, Simeone has seen Courtois, Filipe, Diego Costa, Villa and Adrian leave, while he’s signed Oblak, Moya, Gamez, Ansaldi, Siqueira, Griezmann, Mandzukic and Raul Jimenez join his squad. This means almost half of the team this season will be new additions.

SEE ALSO: Starting the season later could be good for Luis Suarez

As impossible as it may sound, Atletico Madrid has learned to deal with this type of adversity quite well, and “Cholo” Simeone has become a master at starting from scratch each July, yet maintain and even grow the competitive level of his squad.

However, this year it seems the team will have an even higher bar to reach, because their last season was simply superb.

For the first time in almost 20 years, the Colchoneros won La Liga, beating economic powerhouses like Real Madrid and Barcelona to the punch. But far from losing wind in the effort to clinch the domestic title, the team made it to the Champions League final 40 years after their last and only appearance in such a game.

The heartbreaking defeat against the Merengues in Lisbon last May paved the way for the biggest stars of the team to find a new home this season, thinking the team’s performance would not be sustainable for another year.

But Simeone may have just worked the miracle again.

Looking at the roster, it’s hard to imagine a better attacking line could have been put together with the transfer money received than the one formed by Griezmann, Mandzukic and Jimenez. Furthermore, the three attackers seem to have just the right mix of experience and youthful ingenuity, of fire power, speed and ability to associate amongst themselves, to make the fans believe that a successful future without Diego Costa is possible.

Still, finding the right balance and chemistry will be difficult, and the Spanish Super Cup presents itself as the best testing ground to see what the team is made of.

SEE ALSO: James Rodriguez’s growing pains at Real Madrid

Last year, after Radamel Falcao’s departure, there were not many confident fans who thought the team would have the impressive year it ended up having, and the Super Cup against Barcelona helped clear many doubts.

It was the first time the ever-revamping team showed just how well they could compete, and although they ended up losing the tournament on an away goal differential, the two-leg battle against Tata Martino’s squad set the tone for what was to come the rest of the season.

Barcelona was not able to win a single a match out of the six they competed on throughout the year, and Atletico Madrid became one of the most feared rivals in the Europe.

Things may be tougher now than they were then, but the formula is pretty similar: Cholo’s “game by game” philosophy and leaving it all on the field, every minute of every match. If there’s somebody who is up to this challenge, that is Diego Simeone.