Atletico Madrid are down but not out of this season’s Champions League. Having lost 1-0 to Inter Milan in the first leg of their last 16 tie, things are set up nicely for Los Rojiblancos to overturn that deficit in front of their own supporters at the Civitas Metropolitano in three weeks’ time.
It was a pragmatic performance from Atleti, as they looked to nullify the attacking threat shown by Inter. It largely worked, although Lautaro Martinez and Marko Arnautovic (x2) both had big chances that they wasted, before the latter scored the winner for Inter.
Arnautovic’s goal came from an error from Reinildo Mandava, although Diego Simeone chose not to mull over this when he spoke to the media post-match, as per Diario AS.
“That’s the wonderful thing about football, you can prepare whatever you want, but they are people and individually good things happen and not good things happen. Inter made good use of a mistake between Rodrigo (de Paul) and Reinildo in that split ball.”
Simeone is still confident of his Atletico Madrid side progressing to the quarter-finals of the competition, provided that they continue to do things right.
“We have to keep improving, winning duels, running with more intensity… Good things will come.”
