Diego Simeone will motivate Atletico Madrid against Leicester by recalling Champions League final defeats: 'Every time the hymn plays I'm in pain.

Diego Simeone will motivate Atletico Madrid against Leicester by recalling Champions League final defeats: 'Every time the hymn plays I'm in pain.

@djice

tletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone says the pain of twice losing to Real Madrid in the Champions League final will be his side’s greatest motivation against Leicester.

The Argentinian manager has taken the club to two Champions League finals in the last three years but both have ended in defeat by neighbours Real, including last season in Milan.

And Simeone will use that to inspire himself and his players when they take on Leicester.

Simeone told Onda Cero: ‘Every time the Champions League hymn plays I’m in pain. But that pain is our greatest strength to go on and try to win it.

‘The Milan final was a total failure. If you look in the dictionary the definition of failure is to not reach your goal and our goal was to win the Champions League.

‘On the way out of the stadium we had to pass all the Real Madrid players and of course they were celebrating. It killed me to see my children cry after we lost it.’ 

Asked if he would accept another final if he knew he was going to lose it, Simeone said: ‘I would sign for it but hope to change the result somehow. I would love another chance.’

tletico’s coach refused to admit that Champions Leauge outsiders Leicester was his dream draw.

He said: ‘We beat Barcelona to get to last year’s final so I would not say it’s the draw I would have asked for. I don’t get to ask for what I want in the draw.’

On the subject of Leicester, he was asked if he had ever experienced players underperforming to undermine a manager. He replied: ‘In football there is everything. Good and bad. It exists in life so of course it exists in football. And it’s always easier for the coach to be removed than to remove 20 players.’

In a rare in-depth interview with Spanish radio, Simeone said he never switches off from football and added he didn’t feel he had reached the point where his players no longer respond to his orders.

‘Football is never closed for the night. I’m in the cinema and I start thinking about something different we could do on the pitch,’ he said.

‘You have to pick the moments to talk and not to talk to the players. The greatest vitamin for a coach when he thinks he’s been in the job for too long is how the players react; how they perform for him.

‘The other day Juanfran was left out but then we got an injury and so from minute one he’s on. And he plays as if he’s been picked from the start. These players have given me so much.’

Simeone also played tribute to his two strikers Antoine Griezmann and Fernando Torres.

He said: ‘Fernando is here because I wanted him here. I called him. And I said you are not coming back as a hero and idol, you are coming back because we need you for the type of player you are. Of course he is an idol – 50,000 came to the stadium when he re-signed, only an idol can do that. But I wanted Fernando the player.

‘And Griezmann is intelligent. I don’t have to talk too much to him because he understands everything so quickly.’