Simeone: "We must play every ball on every millimetre of the field as if it were the last"
Diego Pablo Simeone answered the media at the end of the last weekly training at the Calderón. He spoke of the importance of the match against Barcelona to achieve the objective of the third place.
He commented on the assessment to the two strikers, Mandžukić and Fernando Torres that "the assessment must be done at the end of the season. Mandžukić has scored 20 goals with the Club and Fernando came in January and has scored three goals in the League and another three in the King's Cup. Both are very competitive and we need them both. Torres will play tomorrow and we hope he can play an important match as he usually does in big matches."
Regarding the Barcelona of last season and the current one, Simeone says that "we are in the place we have to be in anticipation that Barcelona and Real Madrid, the best, are not at their best level. Last year, possibly they didn’t have the regularity to which we are used to, and we took advantage of that situation. But for that, you have to be prepared to appear. And we are always in that initiative. What’s the difference with the Barcelona of last year? It has two great goalkeepers, Piqué has had a very good season, Mascherano with a great regularity, Rakitic has given the midfield a stability that gives the team more aggressiveness, Luis Suárez made the team much more complete, better on set pieces in the defence and the offence, and all of that together with the normal lines of a Barcelona that has players who have been playing together for a long time and, in addition, have the extraordinary Messi and Neymar."
With the objective so close, Atlético’s coach sends his players a clear message "Don't think, run. Nothing else."
About what he worries him from the rival, he commented, "I’m worried that it’s a very good team. I have so many things to say that I better keep them to myself. When you get together with your friends, they tell you that you have to pressure Barcelona at the top and then they counterattack and kill you. Others say that you should wait for them at the bottom and if you do, they also kill you. We don’t have to think, we have to play, try to play each ball on every millimetre of the field as if it were the last. We have to bet on that, to play a game without thinking so much because when you think too much you get stuck and you get further away from what you want, the victory."
