MADRID, 14 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Atlético de Madrid manager Diego Pablo Simeone has played down the controversy over the schedule, as the carousel of matches for the start of the Champions League approaches, and has assured that “nobody cares when the match ends”, as well as stating that they will be judged by how they perform “on the pitch”, starting with this Sunday’s match against Valencia at the Cívitas Metropolitano.
“The only thing I think about is that the team is doing well and improving. Nobody cares about all the questions I’m being asked when the match is over. They’re going to judge me and the team by how we perform on the pitch. Nobody’s going to remember this, I’m not going to worry about something I can’t do anything about. What I can do is try to make our team play well, have a good match and that when the match is over this situation will be just an anecdote,” he said at a press conference.
Asked again about the schedule that awaits them in the coming weeks, ‘Cholo’ again played down the issue. “It’s not my job to think about that, my job is to think about training the team and trying to do our best at the time and place we have to play,” he said.
“I see the group with a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of players who want to play. It’s hard to choose who plays, but the number of games gives me the opportunity to have fresh people who are available and who are very excited to compete. And the truth is that we, as we think game by game, don’t stray away from the Valencia game,” he continued.
In this sense, he insisted that they will not change their philosophy. “We live match by match and there is no other way of seeing football since I arrived at the club and since I try to transmit it to my players. I do not change the search, I do not change the objective, I do not stop dreaming of the best, but for that to happen we cannot go beyond the match by match,” he said.
On the other hand, the Argentine coach appealed not to be complacent about the run of form of the ‘che’ team, which has not yet managed to win. “In LaLiga there are difficulties that are becoming apparent, especially at the start, until the teams begin to take shape. It is true that we have many new kids and it would have been good if they were with us, but the national team calls and everyone wants to go. And it is fair that they go, because it is very nice. We have the task of trying to make them feel good as quickly as possible to perform in the place where they are now,” he said.
“Valencia, because of their coach, because of how they have behaved since he arrived and how their players are following them on the pitch, have a very specific way of playing. They respect it and play with confidence because they know that this is how they compete well. I can’t imagine another competitive team like the one we’ve had in this time,” he added.
On another note, he analysed how he has experienced the four league matches played so far. “In the matches we had to play, we had the chance to manage them as we wanted to play them and that was the best part of these four games. The worst part was that we should have dealt better with the game against Espanyol, the forcefulness that we were unable to have; we were able to do better things, starting from the recovery of the ball, than we did in the first half against Athletic. That is what we are working on, to continue trying to take the game to where we believe we can hurt them,” he said.
Finally, he spoke about Pablo Barrios’ injury with the Spanish U-21 team. “We knew what happened to Barrios could happen. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to realise it before it happened. We hope that it will serve as a concrete situation for the future,” he concluded.