Barcelona continued their poor results and fell from the top of the Spanish Football League with a 1-2 home defeat to Atletico Madrid yesterday Saturday, but manager Hansi Flick urged his team to move forward and to make a stronger comeback after the winter holidays.
Barca have not achieved victory in the last 3 matches of the Spanish League, losing to Leganes and Las Palmas in the previous two matches at home, and have scored 5 points out of 21 that they have been able to collect, and are now 3 points behind the leader. Atletico, who still have a match in hand.
Despite the first home defeat to Atletico in 18 years, Flick said his side had performed well and expected the winter break to help them return to the level they showed at the start of the season. season.
Flick told reporters: “Our performance was incredible today. Maybe this break came at the right time. I like the way we played. But we have to learn from these things. Losing 9 points n “It’s not normal, and we have to work on it.”
He added: “The points we lost against Las Palmas and Leganés are in the past. We will show how strong we are after the holidays. We are very disappointed with this defeat, but life goes on.”
Despite recent setbacks, the former Bayern Munich coach said he is proud of his young team and will work to restore their confidence.
He said: “I’m happy because I can train with these players. There’s not a good atmosphere in the dressing room at the moment, but that’s football. We’ll definitely come back.”
He continued: “We need to build confidence and make them proud of the way they play. My job is to give confidence to all the players. In Munich there was another team that included a lot of experienced players. But I am happy with this team. It is young and has a great level.
On the other hand, Atletico Madrid won their 12th consecutive victory in all competitions.
Atletico’s Argentine coach Diego Simeone admitted Barcelona were the better team for most of the match and highlighted his players’ fighting spirit after converting a goal deficit into the team’s first victory Atletico away against the Catalan team since 2006, 5 years ago. Simeone has joined the club.
The Argentine coach told reporters: “I am very happy with the team’s efforts. Our performance was modest enough to suffer and defend against a team that played very well. They were far superior to us in first half and I think we even scored the goal.”
He continued: “I think we started to have more confidence in ourselves and we saw that we were able to compete in the match. The team was able to resist.”
Simeone stressed that his substitutions were the key to securing the difficult victory against Barcelona.
The Argentine coach replaced striker Antoine Griezmann and brought on Alexander Sorloth in the 73rd minute, a decision which paid off, as the Norwegian player scored the winning goal in the final moments after a counter-attack.
Simeone said: “That’s what the word team means, when one player comes out and another pitches in and provides what’s required. Griezmann took us out early, which was difficult for me, but I knew that Sorloth had something that could get us out from behind to keep the ball.
He added: “I think the substitutions gave us strength. Attacking positions that you can find in counter-attacks, a great performance, a wonderful goal from Sorloth which gave us the opportunity to win a very difficult match.”
Simeone also praised his team’s goalkeeper Jan Oblak after his save prevented Barcelona from increasing their lead in the second half.