Diego Simeone is confident Atletico Madrid have the attacking options to damage Barcelona in Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final second leg even in the absence of the suspended Fernando Torres.
Barca lead 2-1 from the first leg at Camp Nou, with a Luis Suarez double turning things around for the European champions after Fernando Torres had given Atletico the lead and subsequently been sent off.
But Barca’s win over Atletico was sandwiched by league defeats to Real Madrid and Real Sociedad, with a run of three La Liga games without a win leaving the Catalan club just three points clear of Simeone’s men at the top of the league.
And, despite Torres being suspended, Simeone feels Atletico have the quality to take advantage of a Barca side that suddenly appears more fragile.
In his pre-match media conference ahead of the encounter at the Vicente Calderon, Simeone said: “Being Atletico means being perseverant, competitive, to never give up and struggle against difficulties.
“We know there are better teams than us. We know we can compete against [Barcelona].
“We try to improve what we are doing game after game [against Barcelona]. We will try to find an angle and see if we can damage them and win.
“We have many options in attack, with [Luciano] Vietto, [Yannick Ferreira] Carrasco, [Antoine] Griezmann. We will see which combination works.”
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