“Years ago, in 2016, Xavi said that Atletico’s style was not the style for big teams,” Diego Simeone has recalled.
“Now he will be able to deploy what he is looking for, what he wants, what he imagines and what he grew up with since his cradle at Barcelona,” the Atletico boss added.
The trademark style of play is sometimes not as important as winning the three points by any means – this seems to be Simeone’s idea here.
However, we can’t say Xavi is trying to replicate Pep Guardiola’s Barca these days. He seems to know his players’ abilities are limited. They can’t dominate all the games like Guardiola’s team used to do – so his tactical style of play is quite flexible depending on who the opposition is.
We could only hope Xavi responds to Simeone in style on Sunday!
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