Simeone: “It’s a special week because we won in the Champions and the League”

Regarding the two goals that were scored to set pieces, he noted that "the team played a very good match in the first 25 minutes, with an enormous intensity, combinations and scoring chances. By a quirk of fate in the game, we hurt the rival with set pieces again. It makes me happy because Fernando scored a nice goal and in the second one, Raúl Jiménez did very well in the near post for Tiago to score the second. He’s still relevant and is an important weapon that we have within the team."

About Fernando Torres, he commented that "he’s better. He’s having much more combinations with his teammates and it’s clear that we need more from him. He’s a player who needs you to demand things from him and everything that isn’t doing that is not good for him. He’s used to follow that line. Apart from the goals he scored in the Cup against Real Madrid and Barcelona, he needed to score in the League again. There is a nice competition between Mandžukić and Fernando offers us different characteristics."

Whether it is a special week for him, he made it very clear, "Yes, because we won in the League and the Champions and that eases us to face these next 15 days calmly."

To conclude, he said that "I'm happy because we are competing very well in the League and we are in the Champions quarter-finals for the second consecutive time, two years in a row is something that has not happened many times to Atlético de Madrid. It’s important for the players, for the people and for the Club. Mario played a fantastic game the other day. Today Gabi and Tiago played very well. On Tuesday, Griezmann and Mandžukić started, and today Torres and Jiménez did. I’m convinced that if we want to reach the place where we want to be we need everyone to feel well and important. That’s how we’re going to find what we want, which is to compete with those that have a budget a little better than ours."