Former Atletico Madrid chief Jesus Garcia Pitarch says Chelsea ace Diego Costa is a pure street footballer.

In a biography on the player published in Spain and entitled 'Diego Costa, El Arte de la Guerra' (Diego Costa, the Art of War), Pitarch discusses the differences between Costa and players educated at academies.

"He needed a paternal hand. You had to have patience and ­understand certain behaviour. He had to be educated. He's a player who always shows his face and his enthusiasm is contagious. Diego, who developed in the street and played football there, has this inside him: 'He who plays against me is my enemy, even if he's my friend before and after becomes it again.'

"And if he can kill, he kills. And if he can score 10 goals, he doesn't score two. That is the football mentality that Diego Costa has inside his head.

"He's got few codes on the pitch, but his are authentic - blood and fire.

"I thought for a long time that Costa would grow and become a great player, but he needed 300 games.

"Any kid of 18 in the Primera Division will have played that from junior teams onwards. Diego's problem was that he hadn't been in an organised team, with a dressing room, with an idea of ­comradeship, of a club, with discipline.

"He needed games to compete, to be sent off, to mess up, to get spit out of him. A person has to go through it, to make mistakes.

"He made the mistakes he needed to make to distinguish­ ­intensity and ­competitiveness from fighting and bad sporting practise.

"He's had to spend the years and have the games."