MADRID, March 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Atlético de Madrid coach, Diego Pablo Simeone, has assured that this Saturday they will experience “a tough and close match” at the Cívitas Metropolitano against Valencia, a team “that counterattacks very well” and that has “many people positioned in attack to do damage”, in addition to confirming that there is the “possibility” that Rodrigo de Paul is a starter.
“We will find ourselves in a tough, close game, against a team that counterattacks very well, that works very well with the second ball and that has many people positioned in attack to do damage,” he declared at a press conference. “He has been working well since the arrival of Baraja, who knows the club and knows what the environment needs. There was a very good response to his arrival from the competition,” he added.
Despite the fact that the team is going through a good period of form, he confessed that he is “always on guard” against the possibility that things get complicated. “I’m glad that the team and the club are looking for the same goal,” he said before the fact that the Athletic Front has decided to end its animation strike.
In another order of things, he spoke of the state of form of the Argentine Rodrigo de Paul. “After that injury that left him some time apart, he began to return to the team, and when he is well he is an important player. Last week 30 minutes have already entered and tomorrow there is the possibility of the game starting,” he said.
He also analyzed the moment of the Brazilian Samuel Lino, on loan to Valencia from the rojiblanco club. “I can’t give my opinion in the long term, but in the present. He is responding very well, in the same way that Riquelme does. He has responded very well in the Gattusso stage, now with Baraja he has entered the four games in which the coach has been; he has a good individual game, a great team effort, Valencia has grown a lot in these games”, he stressed.
Finally, the Argentine coach did not want to assess Luis de la Fuente’s first list with the Spanish team, in which neither Koke nor Marcos Llorente are included and in which he has only included Álvaro Morata as rojiblanco. “I can’t get into giving my opinion on a call because the coach of the Spanish team will have made the call for him thinking about what he thinks is best. It’s a question for the Spain coach,” he concluded.