Atlético Madrid are preparing for Saturday’s La Liga meeting with Athletic Club, and coach Diego Simeone faced the media on Friday to discuss the upcoming encounter at Estadio Riyadh Air Metropolitano.
Simeone was directly asked if he would be distracted by the team’s UEFA Champions League clash with Arsenal on Wednesday night.
“It’s just as important, as we try to make every match in the run-up,” the coach replied. “We’re up against an opponent who won a crucial match a couple of days ago, which has
given them some breathing space in the table, and they have players we know are key, so we’ll try to take the game to where we think we can cause them problems.”
Simeone on defining the pressure of this game in one word
“It’s difficult to put into one word. I can’t think of a single word to answer that. It’s always important to perform well in the match before any other fixture in another competition. We’ll need to put in a strong performance to do better on Wednesday.”
Simeone on how much he’s thinking about Arsenal, from 0 to 100
“Zero.”
Simeone on Jan Oblak
“He’s recovering. He played his first match the other day, he’ll play against Athletic and we’ll see how he responds. We’ll take it day by day.”
Simeone on the run of defeats
“Honestly, I don’t think what happened previously will be reflected in the match. There’s a lot of excitement. Obviously, when it’s time to play that match, the team will be in great shape.”
Simeone on the academy players
“They’ve had a great opportunity this season, because the team has been in contention in all three competitions almost right to the end. We’ll see in the Champions League if we can go all the way, and that’s a lot of matches. We need to manage the squad as best we can to compete in three tournaments. The young players are giving us options. Some have clearly performed better than others, as can be expected. We expect to keep looking to the academy, because that’s the strength of the future.”
Simeone on the locker room
“The dressing room is fine, knowing what’s at stake, knowing the opportunity we missed in the cup final and looking forward to what’s coming, given how hard it’s been to get this far and what we can achieve if things go our way. As for me, I’m just like them.”
Simeone on injured players
“Hancko is still recovering, Sørloth is better, Lookman has to wait. Thank goodness we took him off against Real; otherwise, it might have been worse.”
Simeone on fourth place
“We always try to look at who’s closest to us. We’re five points behind Villarreal and eight ahead of Betis.”
Simeone on complaints about rotations against teams fighting relegation
“My expectation is to compete in all three competitions until the end, and we have two games left to play all the matches that can be played in a year.”
