The coach of Atlético de Madrid, Diego Pablo Simeone, has assured that they lacked “forcefulness” in the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals against Borussia Dortmund (4-2), in which they were eliminated, and believes that if they had had it they would have “won 6-4”.
“In the two games, of the goal situations that both teams had, ours were better. Not to mention in the first game, where the advantage could have been greater. In this game we went through a first half where we had the first with Morata very important, that we couldn’t resolve with a goal. In the second half the team started very well, they had scoring chances, we also had Ángel’s. They didn’t have these types of situations, but they were forceful,” he said at a press conference. .
In this sense, he stated that “the goals speak for themselves.” “There were four of us. We couldn’t have that forcefulness that if we had had, we would have won 6-4. The boys’ effort was very good. In the first game we were able to win with more advantage. And this time, if the goddess Fortune had come On our side, we could have had a result that was not what it was,” he said.
However, he believes that it is “difficult” to train forcefulness. “They are characteristics of more success or less success. That’s why there are statistics, one gets 80% right, another 40%… It’s part of this wonderful game. Can it be improved? Yes, it can, but it’s part of a natural essence of each one. Statistics make differences,” he said.
On the other hand, he analyzed the duel at Signal Iduna Park. “The first half was controlled in the left sector, except in the right, they attacked us a lot in that sector. The counterattack we had was very important and the important passages were on the negative side. The 3-0 that Lino did not achieve, in the start having scored 0-1, Ángel’s before 2-1…”, he noted.
“When we went 2-2, when we were in the best moment, they scored a very good goal, in that same sector where they hurt us the entire game. The fourth came accordingly and took us away from being able to tie,” he stated, before finish by explaining the change of Álvaro Morata. “I looked for what Correa did in the second half,” he concluded.