“Inter is among the four or five best teams in Europe”
MADRID, 19 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The coach of Atlético de Madrid, Diego Pablo Simeone, has assured that Inter, whom they will face this Tuesday in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16, is “among the best four or five teams in Europe right now”, and has warned that it will be a match “of duels” and that the one who wins the most will be the one who takes the victory.
“To talk about Inter, we have to think that they are among the best four or five teams in Europe at the moment. Their situation in the league speaks for itself, because of how they are carrying it out, and the way they played the Champions League. 'Last season, making a great final against Manchester City. Now he is competing with even more confidence,' he declared at a press conference.
In this sense, he acknowledged that he “really likes” how he plays. “They play concrete, simple, and sometimes the simple things are the ones that work best. They all work collectively. It will be a match of duels, whoever wins the most duels will have the best chance of getting closer to victory,” he warned.
“We need to play with the intensity that we played in the last Copa del Rey games; we need to play with the intensity that was played the other day with Las Palmas. We are going to face an opponent that is in a great moment, that has weapons to to be able to attack from any side, because they do it very well, also taking risks from sustaining the attack. We will play where we believe we can hurt them,” he continued.
He also agreed that this is one of the most important games of the season. “So far we have faced Real Madrid, which is a very important rival at the height of the moment that Inter has, so we are in that line similar to the games we have played lately with Madrid, especially in the Super Cup and the Cup of the King,” he noted.
He also did not reveal whether he could bet on Marcos Llorente in attack, as in the match against UD Las Palmas. “Marcos has different characteristics than the other forwards we have, possibly he is more similar to Correa, because of his work, because of his speed. Obviously, he is not a pure forward like Morata or Memphis. We will see the game we imagine, we will think well about the night today how to work on it, and tomorrow we will decide well,” he said.
In another order of things, Simeone remembered his years at Inter. “They were probably the best two years of my career, with a very strong team like we had then. I have great memories of that whole group of players and the people because they always helped us. I gave them everything I had, and surely tomorrow “that thing comes out inside your body that comes to you when you arrive at a place where you love people. I will have to live with that, just as I had to live with it in Rome with Lazio,” he stated.
Finally, he praised his counterpart on the Italian bench, Simone Inzaghi, with whom he coincided at Lazio when they won the 'Scudetto'. “We talked a lot about football. I am very happy with everything that is happening with Inter, he is a great coach and above all he is managing very well a group of boys who support him a lot,” he concluded.