“When we regained the champion block we were hooked again”

Diego Pablo Simeone spoke about the change made by the team in this second round, where they now look at the second place occupied by Real Madrid and where they are separated by only two points.

What has changed in the team?

“Maybe the team is better, you will see. We were all able to compete in the same way. There is a substitute every time we have to play. People coming in from the bank contributed a lot. That creates a lot of possibilities for us. The defensive structure is back in place, to develop the talent we have through our defensive structure. Now I think we played a good game for seventy odd minutes. From there, it may happen that the team does not end up solving a game that is almost over, and Rayo has options to tie the game.

Strategy against Lightning

“Rayo has a characteristic that does not change, which is that it presses very high to recover the ball in the opposing field. It is one of the teams that has the most rebounds in the rival field. We chose to jump a little. We chose to jump a little and include the support people. Morata jumped very well in the first half. Molina’s first goal came from a game we dragged with Griezmann, and then there was verticality from Morata and Molina. And Molina finally scored because his plays were so good. The team played the game very well, in the midfield Rodrigo and Koke played a very good game. The defense team continues to grow. We got a victory that could be difficult for us at the end”.

defensive security

“We have to go back two years. The team that won La Liga is playing. Now Molina played instead of Trippier, but Savic played, Giménez played, Hermoso played, Carrasco, Koke, Lemar played once. Now there is Rodrigo. There was Griezmann who played in the position of Joao or Ángel. And there’s Morata for Luis Suárez. We’ve changed a bit, I think we’ve had more continuity in terms of injuries to defenders. I think we hurt a lot in the first lap. No one cares when you lose a player, but it matters because you lose the defensive structure. Eventually you lose support. After getting that block back that championship year, we were hooked again. Again we had more continuity with Giménez and Savic changing because Mario had a lot of regularity because of his work since he came back from the World Cup. They play well, when the game is good and the team is committed, good things can be seen”.

Oblak’s note

“The work of sports management is very good. Jan was chosen at a young age. I remember that Moya plays well, everyone wants Oblak to play and I thought if Moya is good because Oblak will play. Finally, he got his chance on the day against Bayer, if I remember correctly, he knows how to take his chance, and he keeps going. It’s hard to have stability like her.”