Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone appeared in front of the media for the first time since storming out of his press conference in midweek.
The Argentine manager was proud of his team in midweek, despite going down 1-0 on aggregate to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. However he did make some spiky comments that did not involve Guardiola by name, but few doubted to whom they were directed. After being asked whether he could give advice to Real Madrid on how best to beat City, Simeone said he would never dare do so and promptly left the press conference, as reported by the Manchester Evening News.
Today’s scene was much less tense as Simeone attended to his pre-match duties ahead of Atleti’s match with Espanyol tomorrow afternoon. Now, it was about re-focusing for Los Colchoneros.
“The biggest challenge we have is showing what the players showed in the last match. They as players and we as a technical staff showed we could compete and the challenge is to ensure everyone is involved, the ones that play and the ones that don’t.”
Mundo Deportivo covered his comments, in which Simeone made it clear he was happy with the performance on Wednesday night regardless of the result.
“A big effort was made as you could see, the team knows they played a good game that didn’t achieve the objective, but we’re calm from having given everything and when you give everything, you can work calmly.”
Asked about how he felt personally, he went beyond just being content and said that this was the best version of Los Rojiblancos, once again doubling down on his previous message.
“I feel very good, when you show your best version, we weren’t clinical and football is the consequences of the game, but we are calm because we gave everything.”
Atletico Madrid welcome Espanyol to the Wanda Metropolitano at 16:15 CEST – Eduardo Alvarez is predicting problems for them too.
