Manchester City eliminated Atletico Madrid and advanced to the Champions League semifinals. However, this time in development both teams changed roles. In the first leg, in England, the Citizens of Pep Guardiola had taken the lead and won by 1 to 0 against a Simeone Aleti who resisted. But in the Wanda Metropolitano, especially in the complement, it was the Spanish cast that got their opponent into the area, especially because of attitude and mentality. The 0-0 gave him the ticket to the visit, but he injected controversy into the statements after a match that already exhibited a very high temperature in the 90 minutes, and that even had an altercation between the squads in the tunnel on the way to the locker room.
In this context, Diego Simeone gave a press conference in which irony abounded. The Argentine coach, Pep's antagonist, ended the match by applauding the stance of his players in unison with the public. And he explained his gesture, with a buzzing tone.
“At no time did I applaud the rival bench, I applauded our people, the people on one side, on the other side. I thought it was fair to applaud something that was seen, that was very strongly noticeable, that the footballers were giving people everything they wanted, beyond the fact that we couldn't give them the pass,” he argued.
One of the items that had criticized Aleti in Manchester had been his unwillingness to play. This time, City was the cast that let the timer run. Faced with this topic, Cholo once again appealed to irony. “What waste of time? Nothing to say, there is always a referee to handle the rules. To congratulate the rival, who played a great game and played the football that we are always used to”, he hit.
He threw the sharpest dagger when he was asked if he had felt mistreated by Guardiola. Or if I had disrespected him. “I don't have to say or believe that one speaks badly or well... Many times those who have a great lexicon are very intelligent and manage to praise you in contempt, but hey, those who may have a little less of a lexicon are not so dumb”, he concluded, conclusively.
“I didn't like defending myself like this, but we didn't have another one. Atleti was brilliant and we had nothing else to do. We have been bad and they have been very good. Here at Wanda, as I experienced it as a player in Calderón, with the support of the people, Atleti becomes an unstoppable team”, he explained the unusual stance taken by his squad, which gave rise to the war of ironies proposed by Simeone.
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