{"id":2954,"date":"2026-04-13T00:47:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T00:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/2954\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T00:47:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T00:47:23","slug":"i-have-a-plan-diego-simeone-ready-for-barcelona-after-making-10-changes-to-his-atletico-team-ahead-of-crucial-champions-league-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/2954\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I have a plan\u2019 \u2013 Diego Simeone ready for Barcelona after making 10 changes to his Atletico team ahead of crucial Champions League showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone says he has a plan for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcablaugranes.com\/barcelona-uefa-champions-league\/117120\/three-talking-points-barcelona-atletico-madrid-as-pau-cubarsi-sent-off-in-first-leg-loss\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tuesday\u2019s crucial Champions League quarter-final second leg against Barcelona.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Tuesday\u2019s crucial Champions League quarter-final second leg against Barcelona.&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Tuesday\u2019s crucial Champions League quarter-final second leg against Barcelona.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The hosts head into the game 2-0 up in the tie and in good shape to make it through to the semi-finals and a match-up against Arsenal or Sporting.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Simeone made 10 changes to his Atletico team against Sevilla ahead of the game, going on to lose 2-1, and was asked if his team had been distracted by the upcoming Champions League fixture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cNo, no. Atl\u00e9tico didn\u2019t win because Sevilla were more decisive,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe have a plan. That doesn\u2019t mean it will go well, it could go badly, but I have a plan and I\u2019m not going to deviate from it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cFor me, age doesn\u2019t matter. Some players understand the game, others don\u2019t. We did more things right than wrong; the truth is that the opposition really needed the win. We competed very well, we couldn\u2019t create as many goal-scoring opportunities as we\u2019d have liked.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe had far more possession than I would have preferred, I\u2019d have preferred us to be direct and intense in our transitions, but we couldn\u2019t manage it. We ended up with a narrow result that we could have drawn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Atletico and Barcelona have already faced off four times this season. Barca won both La Liga fixtures, while Atletico won 4-3 on aggregate in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone says he has a plan for Tuesday\u2019s crucial Champions League quarter-final second leg&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2140,366,2139,92,1455,223,2141,327,17,415,1236],"class_list":{"0":"post-2954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-alex-caparros","9":"tag-arsenal","10":"tag-atletico-de-madrid","11":"tag-barcelona","12":"tag-diego-simeone","13":"tag-fc-barcelona","14":"tag-getty-images","15":"tag-sevilla","16":"tag-spain","17":"tag-uefa","18":"tag-uefa-champions-league"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}