Michael Laudrup, head coach of Mallorca, knows that his team is playing for its life in this Saturday’s match against Atlético de Madrid. Even so, the manager assured that “we’ve tried to hold training sessions without talking about the game too much because it’s not necessary. Football is suffering. It’s a specific and difficult time; we’re going to suffer until the end but I’m convinced that we’re going to earn a result that will allow us to lift our arms in joy. The lads’ work during the year deserves the prize of remaining in the First Division. We need to get a result and think about ourselves.”

The Mallorca manager continued to touch on the contest and said that “the Atlético players have to feel that we need the result. There’s a limit. I’ll never tell them to make a challenge to cause harm, but I do want them to play strong.

“We have to think about ourselves, get this result and the rest can do what they want. Atlético are a good team that are in Europe, but they could move up to fifth or sixth place,” he commented.

Concerning the Atlético de Madrid that he expects to see, the coach stated that “there are tactical things to take into consideration; they have lots of quality up top in Reyes or Agüero. In the central midfield they’ll have Assunçao, Tiago or Mario.We have to play with cool heads to minimize risks. They’re going to create chances, but it also depends on what we do ourselves and where they make their mistakes. Mentally, we have to try and calm the players down, although the players can’t have total tranquility. We have the feeling that this is a different type of game. When five minutes have passed, we’ll have to change that.”