Inside Atletico Madrid’s plan to make Arsenal ‘lose their heads’
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE SEMI-FINALS: Complaints ranging from cold showers to the length of the grass bring an edge to this evening’s Champions League semi-final, writes Miguel Delaney, with the Gunners wary of falling for Diego Simeone’s tricks in the second leg
While Diego Simeone is trying to ratchet up a lot of noise around Arsenal , Mikel Arteta has been quietly repeating the same message over the past few days. He has reminded his players they have a home game to get to a Champions League final. The biggest fixture of their club careers, from the most familiar environment.
“It's amazing to play this game at home,” Viktor Gyokeres said of the second leg. “We know what's at stake, and of course, we have an amazing opportunity. ” A staff member went even further, stating, “You wouldn’t have it any other way.
” You might have a different opponent, though. If the setting sounds so enticingly simple, Simeone has been doing his best to complicate it. The belief from insiders at both clubs is that the Atletico manager wants “Arsenal to lose their heads” - to make the game a battle.
The great challenge for Arteta and his squad, then, is to stay composed. It wasn’t for nothing that Simeone said “we noticed their fatigue” after the first leg, adding that “it gets accumulated from so many games, so much pressure, so much responsibility that’s on them to win the Premier League… and the pressure on them to win the Champions League”. “It all adds up,” he remarked.
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