The Atletico manager will currently doubt himself and his team but hopefully won’t pass up the opportunity to become the club’s Sir Alex Ferguson.

Atletico Madrid have participated in the last three Champions League competitions and only been knocked out by one team. If you told that to anyone who hadn’t been watching, they would assume Atletico had been European champions at least once.

But they haven’t. They have run, again and again, into the same immovable obstacle. The obstacle which has been there from the day the club was formed in 1903. Their city rivals Real Madrid.

Today Atletico have nothing to fear from Real. Atletico, not Real, were the outstanding team of the tournament. They knocked out the two best teams in Bayern Munich and Barcelona, while Real limped past Wolfsburg and then beat a Man City side so lacking in team spirit that they might be the worst team ever to reach a Champions League semi-final.

If Atletico two years ago, despite losing in the most heartbreaking fashion, could at least be satisfied with their run to the Champions League final, this year was different. It seemed almost written in the stars that they would win it after all they’d done to get there. But they lost.

A lot of aspects of Saturday’s game will demoralise Diego Simeone. He may wonder why his team started so slowly and conceded from another set piece against Real in the final (even if it was offside). He may wonder what he can do when his star player Antoine Griezmann can’t handle the pressure of a penalty in the match, and then the penalty shootout results in such a seemingly routine win for the swagger of Real Madrid.

Above all, he would be entitled to think of his players ‘I can teach you everything you need to know to win a Champions League final on the pitch, but I can’t teach you to think like Real Madrid and Barcelona’.

That mentality, the mentality of knowing you will win the Champions League final because you SHOULD win the Champions League final, comes only with years of experience of winning the biggest tournaments. No manager in the era of modern football has ever been able to instil it in a club outside the elite. Not even Jose Mourinho at Porto.

Yes, Porto were a great underdog story and they demonstrated an incredible togetherness to go on and win it. However, after knocking out Manchester United in the Last 16 they played Lyon, Deportivo and Monaco. Nobody can compare that with Atletico’s run of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.

“I am thinking that I have to start thinking (about my future). It’s a logical question for you to ask after a defeat like the one we’ve suffered today,” Simeone said.

“Losing two finals is a failure.”

Above all the question he will ask himself is whether he can change the mentality at Atletico from an upstart mentality to a big club mentality. Whether he can can send Atletico into European finals against teams like Real Madrid knowing they will deliver the trophy.

And the answer to that is maybe he can’t. Maybe he will have to wait for the lucky draw that teams like Porto got. But if he stays at Atletico and continues to rebuild squad after squad, then eventually you would fancy him to get that bit of luck. And once you’ve won one Champions League, the whole mentality about the club changes.

The alternative is leave for the riches of the Premier League. The man described as ‘pound for pound the best coach in the world’ should have little problem delivering a huge trophy haul to a club with loads of money and the champions mentality that Atletico currently lack.

But therein lies a bigger issue. Do you want to be like Pep Guardiola or Sir Alex Ferguson? Guardiola is considered by many to be the best coach in the world today, but at the age of 41 he basically ruined any chance he will ever have of being considered the equal of Fergie by leaving Barcelona.

Nevermind that Guardiola won as many Champions League titles in three years as Ferguson won in 27 years, the Scot will always be remembered as the greater manager because he had the patience to build a dynasty.

Patience might not be a quality that is often associated with Atletico’s hyperactive Argentine manager, but Simeone should go away for a well deserved holiday, reflect on what happened and then look to the future.

If he leaves, he could be the undisputed best coach in the world as soon as a year from now. But if he stays with Atletico, he could become the greatest coach who ever lived.