Simeone: "Some can start better, but the important thing is how it ends"

Diego Pablo Simeone is more about happy endings than exciting beginnings. And that in the Champions League, precisely, he has suffered until now the greatest disappointments that one can imagine.. The 93rd minute is a funeral for any Atlético player, but even more so for the coach who had to experience it from the bench.. The defeat against the eternal rival in the 2013/14 Champions League is an unforgettable memory, which is why Cholo insists that the important thing is May-June: “The season is starting, some can start better, but the important thing is how it ends” .

Simeone refers to the 'rush' at the end of last season of the teams that face each other tomorrow at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, a streak that allowed them to enter the Champions League, when before the World Cup, things looked ugly. However, this season has started differently for both teams.. While Atlético went from scaring the “worst game” (against Valencia) of the Simeone era in the mouth of its coach, Mauricio Sarri's Lazio has three defeats in four games. The victory, yes, was against the champion of the last Scudetto, Naples.

The teams arrive at the Champions League with the need to erase their last European season, disappointing for Lazio and to forget about Atlético, who not only was unable to pass their Champions group but also did not manage to enter the Europa League. “The Champions League is a competition that has cost us a lot lately, but I think we will play well,” explained Cholo.

“Not even against Rayo were we the best…”

His pupil Álvaro Morata, the player in charge of accompanying the coach at the press conference for the match between Lazio and Atlético de Madrid, expressed himself in the same sense. He said that “the Champions League is the Champions League, you cannot have a single moment of low and that's what we learned last season. “We have to start on the right foot and we have a great opportunity tomorrow.”

The curious thing is that last year they did it by beating Porto in the last breath, but winning, which is the important thing.. Now the team will try to enter into a victorious dynamic, so important for the group. “We were not the best in Europe against Rayo, nor are we a disaster now,” Morata expressed and stressed that “when you win you have a positive dynamic and that is why tomorrow we must return to it.”

Opposite will be a team that Simeone knows well, in which he played for four seasons, and with which he won the last Scudetto of the Lazial squad.. “I have goosebumps remembering the years in which the fans loved me so much and always gave me a lot of warmth.”. “They were years of well-played football, we won a lot together.”

Duel of styles

Football, or rather style, has been a point of friction between the coaches of both teams.. Sarri, opposed to Simeone's defensive football, tried to bury a hatchet that he himself raised when he said that “he would be bored if his team played like Atlético”: “My way of seeing football is different from yours, but I I appreciate and I reiterate. He has his own way of playing and with this he did great in Spain and in Europe,” the Italian said.

For his part, Simeone has not only ignored Sarri's previous criticism, but has expressed that “he has always liked (Sarri)” and that “they have taken many things from his game to improve the team.”. A compliment that tomorrow he hopes to take to the field.

However, Atlético arrives with significant losses against Lazio. Reinildo, Memphis, Söyüncü and Koke will not be able to play against Sarri's team. Neither does Lemar who has recently undergone successful surgery for the ruptured Achilles tendon he suffered in the match against Valencia.. Tomorrow the Champions League begins, tomorrow Atlético del Cholo will begin its eleventh consecutive participation.