Simeone: "I'm a club man and I always will be"

"Cristiano? Tomorrow we will have a great game in San Sebastian and we will focus on that," replied the mattress coach

MADRID, 2 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The coach of Atlético de Madrid, Diego Pablo Simeone, described the mattress team's squad as "balanced" at the end of the summer market and with whom he believes that he will be able to "compete" for the titles of the 2022-23 season, and reiterated that He will "always" be "a club man" on the eve of facing Real Sociedad in San Sebastián.

"It was a balanced squad, with good replacements and that can compete with each other in a healthy way. We have a lot of people with scoring ability and in different positions; many players in the middle of the pitch and that gives us options. I'm happy with the squad, I like it the group that was left to compete," he said at a press conference.

Diego Simeone assured that he lived the last hours of the transfer market "calmly" and "following the line that he had been talking to the club". "I trust the people with whom we work and we have known the planned path for a long time. The time? They have known me for 10 years as a coach. I am a club man, and I will always be," he said, referring to the distribution of minutes of players like the French striker Antoine Griezmann.

In this sense, 'El Cholo' argued that his role is to make the footballer "understand" that, sometimes, "entering 30 minutes 'you' are more important than playing 60 badly". "Everyone wants to play more minutes and that's why the coaches are there, to find the best situations for the team," he said.

In his opinion, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the laws of the market, in which it seemed that "four" Atlético footballers could leave and it cost the club "a lot to sell" in this period of health and economic uncertainty.

Simeone did not complain about the calendar at the beginning of the course, because, for him, it was "difficult" to play against Getafe, Villarreal and Valencia. "And now, San Sebastián. The League is very competitive, all the teams are playing better and better, there is not a team that plays badly and it is increasingly difficult to defend due to the variants that each team proposes. That is why many teams take refuge behind given the technical quality that the teams have", he reflected.

Regarding the possibility of signing Manchester United's Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo, he avoided making a statement and putting the focus on the complicated match against Real, which recovered from the departure of Swedish international Isak with a win (0-1) in Elche and in which the Nigerian striker Umar Sadiq could make his debut. "Cristiano? Great game tomorrow in San Sebastian and we focus on that," he said.

On the other hand, he considered that the coaches have outlined which players they will take to the World Cup in Qatar. "Soccer players have the concern of wanting to play. They are excited to play a lot of minutes, but this also exposes you because you can see the strengths and weaknesses. The coach calls you and tells you that 'you have' to play, but I don't think the coaches of the national teams assess for the last five games. There will be a case of 23. They have one 'going around' and the other 22 have been chosen, "he said.