Atletico Madrid's Europa League win is both a new beginning and a fitting end

A Champions League semi-finalist in each of the past three seasons and finalist in two of the last four, Atletico Madrid weren't overly happy to be dropping into the Europa League when their campaign in the continent's top competition went somewhat awry in the autumn.

"The Europa League is shit," chuntered Atletico captain Gabi at the time.

"I guess now I'm eating shit!" he said last night in the joyous surroundings of Lyon, dusting off his knife and fork and with his tone somewhat different after sliding home the goal had put the finishing touch on a comfortable victory over Marseille in the Europa League final.

At the statue of Neptuno, back in Madrid, thousands of fans congregated to celebrate with beer and pyrotechnics. It was another success of the Diego Simeone era, and while it wasn't necessarily the success they wanted it was the perfect demonstration of what Simeone's teams are about - winning at all costs.

Simeone now stands as one of the most influential figures in the history of an already storied and very proud football club. He took over Atletico, the club for whom he was once their beating midfield heart, with the Vicente Calderón club four points off the relegation zone and facing mounting debt.

That same season he took them to Europa League glory, more of a surprise than this week's victory but no less heartily celebrated. There was no way that anyone could have known what was to come, Atleti knocking Barcelona and Real Madrid off their perch, a La Liga title to live long in the memory and those agonising Champions League finals, 90 seconds from lifting the biggest trophy of them all. But most of all it's the crushing consistency. "Game by game" is Simeone's motto, and an endless deluge of 1-0 and 2-0 victories keeps them rolling. In Simeone's five full seasons in charge they've never finished below third in La Liga. They hadn't finished that high in 15 years before his arrival.

Now established as one of Europe's top sides and playing in a state-of-the-art new stadium befitting their on-field status, the biggest fear hanging over Atleti is what happens at the end of the era. How will anyone succeed Simeone and keep them going?

There have been plenty of occasions when it has appeared Simeone's reign could begin to stutter and fall and it has yet to come to pass. Atletico have sold Falcao, Diego Costa, Filipe Luis, Theo Hernandez, Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco and all manner of other key contributors but it has barely affected their on-field success, which suggests it is the Argentine who is ultimately the key. He will stay next season but some of the most familiar - and productive - faces of his reign will not.

Fernando Torres had his fairytale ending in Lyon on Wednesday, covered in red and white ticker tape and holding the Europa League trophy aloft. With five minutes remaining, despite being on a hat-trick, Antoine Griezmann signalled to the bench to make the change. Torres replaced Griezmann in what might end up being both of their final games as Atletico players, with Grizou's prioritising of the team over himself typical of what Simeone's men are expected to do every week.

Torres is Atletico to many people. El Nino, the teenaged star who thrilled, went off to conquer the world and then came home. His usefulness at this stage of his career is questionable but his commitment never has been. His career has been the stuff of dreams.

Griezmann has been the star for so long now but his time, too, may have come. Within days of a Manchester United move last summer, this year he looks certain to sign for Barcelona when they activate his €100m release clause that is undeniably well below market value for a player of his ability - a top-five footballer in the world over recent seasons.

Torres is definitely going, Griezmann probably. Jan Oblak is a possibly, with his post-match comments - "not everything depends on me" - doing little to clear up questions over whether he will remain in Madrid for another tilt at La Liga.

Simeone, though, is definitely staying. How could he not? In a summer when some of the Premier League's richest clubs were changing manager there was never even a flicker of doubt that the Argentinean coach who has come to represent everything that the 21st century Atletico Madrid means would be staying.

So while it feels like the end of an era with one of the club's greatest-ever players departing, as well as his more talented strike partner, the other way of looking at this is that it is Atletico's first trophy since moving into their new Estadio Metropolitano Wanda. It is the end of something old and the start of something new wrapped inside something far greater - the Diego Simeone era.