No comments found for this period.
Three talking points from Atletico Madrid 1-2 Barcelona as Hans Flick’s side crash out of Champions League
We almost played a perfect first half & had we accomplished that I think the tie would've been ours. Simeone dared to press & play in the front foot & it backfired immediately & I know he would be thanking his 🌟right now. Flick double-dared him & that was almost spot on. We could've blitzed them 3~4 goals before they had a chance to have a say in the game. We were operating in such a high level you could feel the fear in the stadium right through your screen. After the Fermin injury the pace of the game slowed a bit & they managed to bait Barça players perfectly & opened us up. They were more brutal in moments like this across the two legs & that's what gave them the qualification ticket. They picked their moments & made it count, we would've been close to being this punishing with Raphinha too I think.Second half they started to defend a bit deeper and played heavily on transition. I think the subs of Rashford & Lewy made us a bit rigid & started putting more pressure on the middle, we started creating lesser and lesser because of the loss of that additional midfielder in the midfield and Lewy not being efficient at occupying pockets in a clogged space, something Ferran was doing excellently all game, their defence started to settle more and we started to force it through Yamal on the right & that's where it went downhill. Flick tried to fix this with the Roony sub but it was already too late as the damage has been done. I cannot emphasise enough how much grudge I hold against Raphinha for missing this tie. I never expected Rashford to do something not because he's bad or miss chances... he simply isn't Raphinha who understands perfectly what that LW role is. Flick has fallen short twice now while his team looked & played better the the teams who KOd him. People criticise him saying we'll never win the UCL with his brand of football but I don't know I'm disappointed but not because of the football we played, I just feel like we're few mile away from everything falling into place, in this competition you need everything including luck & we seem to not have any lately. The refs was suspect but I think we have the quality to put a game even beyond the reach of a referees we just need to make our moments count more in this competition.
0