Ahead of the Copa del Rey semifinals, players and coaching staff are preparing to earn their place in the grand final and take home the trophy. Atlético Madrid will face FC Barcelona, and coach Diego Simeone is already planning his strategy to stop his rival, specifically one of Barça’s players.
Cholo’s team already took an important step by winning 4-0 in the first leg at the Estadio Metropolitano. Now they want to repeat the victory against Hansi Flick’s team at Spotify Camp Nou on Tuesday, March 3, and they have a plan.
Simeone seeks to stop Yamal
With goals from Antoine Griezmann, Ademola Lookman, Julián Álvarez, and Eric Garcia, Atlético Madrid has the advantage going into the match against Barcelona. At the pre-match press conference, the coach revealed that Barça’s offense will be his main focus, working primarily on defensive aspects to block players such as Pedri, Raphinha, and Lamine Yamal.
“It goes without saying how important Pedri and Raphinha are to any team in the world. Tomorrow they will surely be there and they will do well as they usually do because they are both very good players,” said ‘Cholo’.
“Lamine Yamal is a very good individual player, especially in the final third of the game. We have to take advantage of the opportunities he gives us in attack to be able to attack in that area. And take him to the place where he feels most uncomfortable, which is defending,” he added about the 18-year-old.
The truth is that the Pedri-Yamal duo has just wreaked havoc against Villarreal (4-1), with Lamine scoring his first hat-trick thanks to an assist from González and two from Fermín López, leading Barcelona to another resounding victory.
For this reason, it is not surprising that Simeone wants to avoid surprises and has his sights set on these players, as he knows that if he gives them free rein, he could condemn them to a defeat that would knock them out of the Copa del Rey.
Diego’s idea, then, is to use Nicolás González as reinforcement on the left wing. In this way, he would collaborate with Matteo Ruggeri and limit the Barça striker, according to Mundo Deportivo.
Meanwhile, Barça suffers a significant loss: Robert Lewandowski. The Polish star suffered a bone fracture on the inside of his left eye socket against Villarreal, which means he will have to sit out the match against Atlético Madrid.
“We imagine the match as we always do against any opponent. In the matches we have played against them, we know their strengths and our options for playing the game we need to play. There’s not much else to it,” concluded Simeone.
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