Simeone Praises Harry Kane Ahead of the UEFA Champions League Match
The Argentine coach highlighted the English striker as an "incredible" player who leaves "a legacy for the kids," and analyzed the Champions League clash against Bayern at the Metropolitano.
Diego Simeone, coach of Atlético de Madrid, stressed this Monday that Harry Kane, his rival with Bayern Munich in Tuesday's Champions League match at the Metropolitano, is an "incredible" player who "does football a lot of good" and leaves "a legacy for the kids" on "how you can reach an important place by working."
"To congratulate Kane for the Ballon d'Or he has rightly won. I consider him an incredible player. I have always liked him, I have no doubt that, with the growth and maturity he has had over the years, he has found better places to play up front without moving away from what he does very well, which is scoring goals," he said at a press conference at the Metropolitano.
"He looks committed to the work, to getting the team out from the back... I congratulate him for his talent. He does football a lot of good and, above all, the kids who watch this type of player, who leave a legacy for young people on how you can reach an important place by working," the coach emphasized in his praise of the English striker.
The plan against Bayern and the Metropolitano factor
While insisting on his team's "balance," which "is the hardest thing" in football, "finding the regularity of being able to maintain a line in almost every match," Simeone would like this Tuesday against Bayern "to attack for 80 minutes, leave the last 10 to them so they can attack for a while, pressing, the team combining, that we score the goal with the 20 touches from the other day against Levante…"
"But the reality is different, it will be a competition against a very strong team, we will have to go through difficult and hard moments, get out of their pressure, which they work very well when they lose the ball…," he warned.
There is also the Metropolitano factor. "We need our people as they usually are, stronger and stronger, closer and closer to the players, who receive it, and hopefully we, from below, can carry upward that energy they always transmit to us and try to also enjoy what we have ahead of us, with very beautiful and very important matches," explained the Argentine coach.
The final will be there this season. "I don't know how long we are going to stay in the Champions League, but I hope they don't ask this question at every press conference, because they are all repetitive," said the coach, before insisting on the importance it has for the club.
"For the club it is something wonderful that it is played in our stadium, but we go match by match. There is enormous work to be able to reach a scenario that is very beautiful, but very difficult," insisted the Argentine manager, who considered that this type of match and the continental competition must be lived with "illusion, enthusiasm, joy" and "knowing" that they will face a Bayern that is "tough, very good and one of the best in the competition."
Lookman's moment and Obed Vargas' situation
He also spoke again about Ademola Lookman's current moment: "He hasn't started the season as he would have liked, but Julián also went through difficult moments last year and then came out of it; Griezmann, remember that moment when he wasn't scoring and he came out of it... This is work, it is believing in what you do. We believe in the importance Lookman has for us."
"I trust him a lot. I don't want him to get into that situation of frustration, because it is part of life, of the game and of football. You have to go through it until one day he starts scoring a goal, playing better, assisting, feeling more alive when the goals come, when he assists, and hopefully that is the path he can follow," he declared.
And he was asked about Obed Vargas. "He is a kid who is working very well, who has a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of hope, very committed, with exemplary behavior with his teammates and he competes against kids who are doing very well, like Barrios, Cardoso, Koke, Morten, Llorente, Mendoza…," he answered.
"There are many footballers in that place and we, the coaches, are always waiting to see things in training like 'damn, this guy has to play, because he is doing everything right.' That is what we coaches look at so that opportunity translates into the coach being able to play him," he added. EFE
