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The Champions League knockout stages continue as holders Chelsea host Lille and Manchester United travel to Atletico Madrid.
United will be hoping to follow the other three Premier League sides in securing first-leg leads in the last 16, after Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City thrashed Sporting Lisbon and Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool beat Inter Milan 2-0 last week.
Chelsea made it three out of three with their 2-0 win over Lille on Tuesday – meaning that the Premier League teams are yet to concede a goal in the knockout stages so far let alone suffer a defeat.
Simeone feeling the heat at Atletico
If Ralf Rangnick is to win a trophy during his interim reign as Manchester United manager, it can only be by delivering the club’s fourth European Cup. The German’s team has already exited the FA Cup, but he has overseen a recovery in the Premier League since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s firing, taking 25 points from 12 games to take United from sixth to fourth.
A sign of the 63-year-old Rangnick’s top-level coaching inexperience is that the game at Atletico is the first time he’s managed a team in the Champions League knockout phase since his Schalke side was beaten in the semi-finals in 2011 by Alex Ferguson’s United.
Rangnick has been beset by reports about the challenges coaching United and it was significant that he referenced the unity on display in Sunday’s 4-2 win at Leeds in the Premier League. He said the result was the best reply that they could give to some articles last week that there was some disruption in the dressing room.
Atletico Madrid factfile
Having led Atletico to La Liga glory for the second time last season, Diego Simeone has endured a frustrating campaign to date.
Simeone’s men currently lie in fifth place in Spain, 15 points behind arch-rivals Real Madrid at the top of the table – they have lost seven league games to date this season, three more than in the whole of the last campaign – and had their domestic cup hopes shattered by Copa del Rey and Spanish Super Cup exits inside a week last month.
They emerged from Group B as runners-up behind Liverpool despite losing 3-2 at home to the Reds and 2-0 at Anfield, and went out of the competition at this stage last season to eventual winners Chelsea following a 1-0 defeat at the Metropolitano and a 2-0 reverse at Stamford Bridge.
However, they did beat United over two legs the last time the clubs met, in the second round of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1991-92. Evergreen striker Luis Suarez will hope to renew his rivalry with the men from Old Trafford, but Antoine Griezmann is yet to figure since his return from a thigh injury.
Atletico are led by the longest-serving coach remaining in this season’s Champions League. But fresh from marking a decade in charge in December, Atletico are enduring one of their most turbulent moments under Diego Simeone. The team is inconsistent – much like United – and Simeone is feeling the heat.
There was an encouraging 3-0 win at Osasuna at the weekend but Atletico had lost four of their previous six games in all competitions before Saturday, including eliminations from the Spanish Super Cup and the Copa del Rey.
Like United in England, Atletico are currently chasing the fourth and final Champions League qualification place in Spain. Simeone is likely to face United without Daniel Wass and Matheus Cunha because of injuries, while Thomas Lemar remains in isolation with coronavirus. While Atletico are the defending Spanish champions, United haven’t won a trophy since the 2017 Europa League under Jose Mourinho.
- Atletico Madrid and Manchester United have only appeared in the same European campaign once before – the 1991-92 Cup Winners’ Cup – when the Spanish side knocked out their English counterparts 4-1 on aggregate in the Last 16.
- United’s only previous visit to Atlético Madrid was in the first leg of their 1991-92 Cup Winners’ Cup tie at the Vicente Calderón, when a starting XI that contained Peter Schmeichel, Denis Irwin, Steve Bruce, Paul Ince, Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes (amongst others) were beaten 3-0 by Luis Aragonés’ men.
- Atletico have lost each of their last four Champions League matches against English teams, double the number of defeats they suffered across their first 12 such matches in the competition.
Latest: Atletico 1-0 Man United 69″
Source: myJoy
