Atletico Madrid’s defence did enough to knock Liverpool out of the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Graeme Souness has hit out at Atletico Madrid’s style of play and labelled Diego Simeone a ‘lucky’ manager after his side knocked Liverpool out of the Champions League on Wednesday night at Anfield, as posted on Supreme Architect’s YouTube account.
The former midfielder claimed that he would ‘never’ be in charge of a team that plays in the manner in which the La Liga side do, as they scored three goals in extra-time to cancel out goals from Liverpool duo Gini Wijnaldum and Roberto Firmino.
Even though Liverpool went into the second-leg tie losing 1-0, many were backing them to progress because of what they are capable of doing at Anfield – cite the Barcelona comeback from last season.
Liverpool weren’t able to do the business this time around, as Souness blasted Simeone and offered a no-holds-barred assessment of his team after their win last night.
“I accept you can play defensively and win games of football,” said Souness. “What I didn’t like about Atletico is that they defended really, really well to a man and they put their body on the line, time and time again – but you have to play a bit, haven’t you, when you defend?!
“It’s not just about hanging on the way they hung on. It’s a very dangerous game to play. 99 times out of 100, they don’t get that type of result going to Anfield. No, it’s not a bad night for football, but this is nothing new from Madrid. They are struggling in their own league and they are not the team they were a few years ago.
“This man [Simeone] gets them playing a brand of football which has caused them to come up short many, many times. It’s not a brand of football that I would enjoy or endorse. But it’s been effective tonight. However, it has mostly been down to Liverpool not taking their chances. They rode their luck enormously tonight.
“I would never be in charge of a team that would want to play like that. If you are stuck with a group of players and you end up playing like that, you must say to yourself, ‘we really have to be lucky every time we go out to play to play like that’ – I think anyone going down that road and playing like that has to be a lucky manager – you have to say they were lucky tonight.”
There’s no doubt that the manner in which Atletico won has stirred the pot amongst a lot of people, but from the perspective of the Spanish side, they won’t care a jot because they are through to the next round.
Simeone’s side have come close to lifting the Champions League before, but they just haven’t had enough to get over that dotted line.
There is only one more English side remaining in the Champions League, as Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City will be looking to knock out Atletico’s rivals Real from the competition.
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