Diego Simeone reflects on controversial Champions League exit

Atletico Madrid are gearing up for their blockbuster La Liga clash against Barcelona, but minds are still on Wednesday’s defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League. They continue to feel very hard done by, particularly in regards to the circumstances of their penalty shoot-out loss at the Metropolitano.

In a rare moment, Atleti head coach Diego Simeone opted to speak on this topic on more time during his pre-match press conference, as per Diario AS.

“Normally I always say focus on Barcelona. This time the situation merits an explanation about my feeling. It’s about anger, rage, injustice… but from my place the only thing I have the power to do is to work so that the team continues to compete as it competes. We understand our people and obviously the feeling that all of us who are at Atlético have is one of anger, rage and injustice.”

Simeone gave his thoughts on the upcoming match against Barcelona, which he expects to be very tricky.

“We have a nice opportunity against a great rival, who plays very well. We have already explained many times what we think of Barcelona. To think about ourselves and transmit to people the illusion of continuing to compete as we do.

“We are concerned about everything. They play brilliantly as a team. They have managed this week very well and, surely, we will have to take the game to where we think we can do damage.”

Simeone also spoke on the recovery process that his side have undertaken in the last couple of days, with this being a note-worthy topic in the last few hours given Real Madrid’s response on the matter.

“We distributed the break well. We gave a day off, we trained on Friday and now a day and a half until today to recover. Tomorrow all the boys who participated will be very excited and those who did not, they are eager to help. It’s a very important match.”