Manchester City and Pep Guardiola got the better of Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid in what was a highly-charged clash with the Argentine offering a sly dig at his counterpart and the Atletico manager offered a cryptic response when queried whether Pep Guardiola had disrespected him.
The Atletico Madrid boss was unable to marshal a second-leg comeback in their Champions League last eight tie despite his team producing every trick in the book they could muster up, albeit some were questionable, when the latter stages descended into an unruly scrap on the pitch and in the tunnel post-match.
The quarter-final – billed as a massive clash between two rivals with diversely opposing styles – saw Guardiola’s possession-based, dominant approach secure a first-leg advantage from the Etihad after Kevin De Bruyne scored the decisive goal of the tie against a Simeone side that had parked the bus on their end of the pitch. The strategy was repeated in the second leg with the Atletico squad relying primarily on sucker punches as a counter offensive.
When the pair last crossed paths in Europe in 2016, Simeone had the edge but this time Guardiola emerged victorious in the Wanda Metropolitano charged with hostility. When the former was asked if he felt his Spanish counterpart had disrespected him in any way, the Argentine opted to think otherwise whilst suggesting some of Guardiola’s comments have pricked him.
“I don’t have to have that sort of opinion. I don’t think he will talk badly or talk well. Often, people who talk really well, and are really clever, they manage to praise you with contempt. But those of us who perhaps have a smaller vocabulary are not so stupid either,” Simeone said.
Credit must be given to Simeone’s side for having been able to force City to dig deep in the second-half as they clung tenaciously onto their slim one-goal lead. Atletico pressed hard for their equaliser which saw the visitors forced to abandon their usual style of play. When asked if he felt their rivals had adopted some of his deensive tactics, the Argentine replied:
“I think football has a lot of different facets and it’s not my place to say if our rivals were playing well or not, or what kind of football they were playing.”
Guardiola, for his part, was dismissive of the idea that he had been in any way critical of his rivals’ tactics, insisting his counterpart was free to use whatever tactics he fancied.
“I have only ever had good words to say about him,” said the City boss. “He can play however he wants, of course. I would never say otherwise. All I said was that it is very hard. And they know how to do that better than anyone in the world.”