Filipe: “Barça requires you to be at your best level”

Filipe Luis attended the media prior to the important quarter-final match against the Catalan team. The Brazilian commented, “both teams are doing very well. Our playing styles are completely different. We play to defend and counterattack. They play with the ball, to have the possession and tire the rival”.
 

Regarding how he sees the match, Filipe Luis highlighted “we know each other well, we’ve played a couple of matched this season. Now we face three more until the end of season. It’s going to be a hard match, very hard because we’re going to run a lot. We’re going to have to be physically well, like we’ve been until now”. The Atlético lateral fullback emphasized in the newsroom that “Barcelona F.C. demands your best level, it’s clear we have to be very focused. It’s a match where they are favourites, but illusion weighs more in this stage of the competition”.

The Atleti defence is not worried for the group’s physical wellbeing because “after an effort, the team always responds well. Since Diego Simeone came to the coaching staff, the team has never decreased it’s physical state, even in January, when the team played so many games, the team held up well. The team is in a great physical moment and I can’s see why the team cannot play against Barcelona as it did on Saturday”.
 

Scoring a goal in Camp Nou is very complicated, and not receiving any is even more complicated

 For Luis Filipe, one of the keys when facing Barça will be in the team’s strength. “Scoring a goal in Camp Nou is very complicated, and not receiving any is even more complicated. We’re going to have to be careful of gaps in our defence and not let Barcelona play their game. Not letting them have any chance to score, and us, on the contrary, creating a lot of opportunities, just like we’ve done the three previous games”. Filipe doesn’t doubt they will be able to achieve a good result. “We’ve done it in Camp Nou, where Valdés was amazing, and in the League fixture where we had opportunities to win the game. We Know Barcelona is going to control the game, it mainly depends on our attention. It’s going to be a very balanced game, very hard, in the same line as the previous three”.
 

“A qualifying match against Barcelona is very wearing, both physically and psychologically, but it won’t affect the League” the Atlético emphatically answered. One of the keys for Filipe Luis is the maturity the group has acquired with time. “The team learnt to differentiate the competitions, to change gears from the League, which is very different. Playing away is very difficult, playing at home every day and winning is becoming. We know what this round means to us, we hope the wearing out doesn’t affect us for the second leg or the League. All of the players who’ve come this far have matured a lot and we know how to differentiate things and fight”.