‘Cholo’ Simeone answers about the 1-2 penalty: “There is nothing, boy”

The coach of Atlético de Madrid, Diego Pablo Simeone, has expressed the opinion that “there is nothing” in the play that caused the 1-2 penalty in favor of LOSC Lille in their match on matchday 3 in the league phase, key to that the French team finally took the 1-3 victory during a match played at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano.

“This is a beautiful competition in which, when a team plays like we played in the first half and has the number of chances to go at least 2 or 3 up at half-time and is not forceful, what happened in the half can happen. second half,” ‘Cholo’ Simeone began his analysis of the match from the press room.

In this sense, he described the 1-1 action as “a great goal.” But immediately afterwards, the Argentine coach criticized the penalty awarded by Marco Guida due to an alleged infraction by Koke Resurrección midway through the second half. “I hope we find something to be able to say that it was a penalty,” lamented the coach of an Atlético team whose immediate future was complicated.

“The truth is, no one cares. The 1-2 balance was on Lille’s side. Then we had the situation of Giménez, Griezmann and Giuliano, which were quite important. But they defended with that dose of luck that we also have to have and that we sometimes have too,” argued the ‘Cholo, resigned to the controversy.

“In a game that we could have won 4-2, we are going 1-3 down,” he insisted before being asked again about the reason that made Guida blow the maximum penalty of 1-2. “There is nothing, boy,” he snapped at the journalist. “Explain to me why it was a penalty. If they tell you it was a handball, it was a handball; was it a push? Well, a push; but this…” he trailed off.

“I hope someday it will be our turn,” he wished sarcastically. Not in vain, he said that “these referee mistakes” “can happen because they are part of football”, but that “they appear and end up leading the game to that 1-2” when in his opinion it was unfair. “We kept insisting and then again in that case bad fortune, like in the Lisbon game, today with two shots on goal they scored three goals for us,” he explained.

Despite everything, he qualified his assessment. “Before the brutal error of the referee and the VAR, it was our mistake for not being forceful at the moment when we could have scored three goals,” he reflected. “We have just lost two games in a row, they scored seven goals against us in those games, we have to go play against Paris Saint-Germain and surely the options are fewer at the moment,” he added about the round of 32.

“Unfortunately today the energies were not in our favor and… well, these things happen,” said the Atlético coach. Meanwhile, he gave his vision about Alexander Sorloth. “He had an extraordinary first half where good combinations and movements were generated with the team to reach the goal zone,” he noted.

“They get to know each other more and more. He knows how to coexist, because he is a forward and he is not a young boy, with these goal and non-goal situations. It is part of the forward’s life. Today it couldn’t be. Surely if we continue working and looking the same way we did in the first half, the goal will come,” he concluded about the Norwegian forward.