Simeone hails classy Atletico

Diego Simeone feels Atletico Madrid produced their best performance since his arrival as coach in a 3-1 win over Besiktas on Thursday.

Two goals from Eduardo Salvio and Adrian’s strike fired hosts Atletico to a commanding first-half lead in the Europa League round-of-16 first leg at Estadio Vicente Calderon.

Former Atletico man Simao Sabrosa pulled one back for the Turkish visitors in the 52nd minute, but Simeone, who took over from Gregorio Manzano in December, was more than satisfied with his team’s assured display.

“I’m very happy with the match,” Simeone said.

“The first half was fantastic and it’s probably one of the best halves we’ve played since I started.”

“What is exciting it that we are playing with the same players and our performance is not going down. The second half was a tough one (for) us, but a 3-1 result is very good for us.”

“The team attacked well and scored three goals.”

“It’s obvious that we were (up) against a good opponent that has good players and it’s normal that they would react after the first half.”

“We expected this to happen and they showed that the second leg will be very difficult as we expected. We have a good result from this first match though.”

After enduring a torrid time in the opening 45 minutes, Besiktas coach Carlos Carvalhal was pleased with the improvement his players showed following the half-time break.

“It was a game that had two clearly different halves,” he said.

“The first half we didn’t play as a team and weren’t compact. We left too many open spaces and our defence was constantly subject to attacking plays.”

“The second half was … different. We were a lot more compact and we played as a team.”

“We scored a goal and unfortunately we couldn’t get the second one that would have been a very important one for us.”

According to Carvalhal, Simao’s goal, together with the backing of a partisan crowd at the Inonu Stadium, has given Besiktas hope of turning things around in the second leg next Thursday.

“Now we hope to get a good result in Turkey with our fans,” he said.

“What we need to get through this tie is to show that we have the quality to do it.”

“I spoke to the players and they think that we can and it’s important to send this message to the Besiktas fans.”