Simeone, another plan without finishing

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On Monday, under a fine rain, the Manchester City players jumped into one of the training fields of the complex attached to the Etihad Stadium to carry out the last preparatory session before facing Atlético.

There was not a Guardiola player who did not step on the grass with a ball between his boots.

There appeared lush Phil Foden, doing tricks, while Juanma Lillo, second to the Catalan coach, invited Riyad Mahrez to be more precise in long journeys.

A couple of hours later, Diego Pablo Simeone's players appeared at the Etihad and the conversations between them presided over the first minutes of training.

MNCM.

City

1

Ederson Moraes, Aké, John Stones, Cancelo, Laporte, Gündogan (Grealish, min. 67), Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Mahrez (Foden, min. 67), Bernardo Silva and Sterling (Gabriel Jesus, min. 67)

ATM Athletic

0

Oblak, Felipe Monteiro, Renan Augusto, Savic, Reinildo Mandava, Vrsaljko, Marcos Llorente (Matheus Cunha, min. 59), Koke (De Paul, min. 59), Kondogbia, João Félix (Lemar, min. 80) and Griezmann ( Strap, minute 59)

Goals

1-0 min.

69: De Bruyne.

Referee

István Kovács

Yellow cards De Paul (min. 68), Correa (min. 82), Gabriel Jesus (min. 84), Vrsaljko (min. 91) and Ederson Moraes (min. 91)

Those two sequences of the previous one anticipated what the meeting ended up bringing.

Two teams that seemed to play a different sport because of how they handled the tool that brings it together, the ball.

City wanted her, Atlético only wanted her to look for counterattacks that they barely found.

Simeone's plan was well executed in defense, but in attack he was left without finishing.

The rojiblancos did not register a single shot on goal.

As in the previous training session, the game left revealing images such as seeing Koke as the most advanced footballer, Felipe acting as spearhead in a drive to the middle of the field without anyone accompanying him or the central Stones taking the ball to the front of the Oblak area without anyone getting in his way.

When the Austrian Karl Rapan invented for the Swiss Servette the

(bolt in French) in the mid-1930s, he did so imbued by the inferiority he detected in the amateurism of his footballers against technically superior teams.

On Tuesday, Simeone somehow handed his players over to City's superiority when, after the first twenty minutes, he ordered João Félix and Griezmann to drop their positions to occupy the flanks alongside Marcos Llorente, Koke and Kondogbia.

A couple of incursions by Cancelo down the right alerted Simeone that the time had come to redouble his defensive plan.

In the morning, the Argentine coach had decided that Vrsaljko would occupy the right lane so that Marcos Llorente would play in midfield.

“Playing against two rows of five is very difficult to find spaces, I would recommend everyone who tells us something in this match to try it in the training field.

The way we played was good, because we didn't give anything away.

We remained calm and patient.

You try to look for spaces, but you lose balls because they are very compact ”, analyzed De Bruyne, author of the goal in the 70th minute in the first play in which his team was able to find a gap.

The action was a stick for Simeone, who had detected that the City began to despair and disorder their attack, which favored the cons.

Therefore, ten minutes earlier he had introduced De Paul, Correa and Cunha.

It was his most offensive decision of the night, although it did not work out for him.

Bucharest's 1-6-4-0

It is not the first time that Simeone has raised a Champions League knockout match under those terms of inferiority.

He did it last year in the first leg of the round of 16 with Chelsea, played in Bucharest at home due to the Covid-19 restrictions.

If at the Etihad his board admitted a 1-5-5-0 as a tactic, at the national stadium in the Romanian capital he used a 1-6-4-0.

In both cases, the defensive plan lacked finishing.

The same thing happened to him in Turin three seasons ago, when he played to defend the 2-0 scoreline achieved in the first leg and was passed over by Cristiano's Juventus (3-0).

Already in the previous one, Simeone had also admitted the superiority of City.

"They have better players than us," he warned.

From that individual superiority of Guardiola's team, Cholo legitimized the lock that he designed to keep the tie alive with a view to the second leg next Wednesday at the Metropolitan.

The main fear of the coach and his soccer players when visiting such an offensively sophisticated team was to return with a large goal difference.

For this reason, among the red and white expedition there was a certain relief for surviving a rival whom they believed capable of endorsing them with an insurmountable result in the second leg.

The appeals that the atmosphere of the Metroplitano and a better offensive game can turn the tie around are predominant in Atlético.

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