Diego Simeone offered a cryptic response when quizzed on whether Pep Guardiola had disrespected him
The Atletico Madrid boss could not mastermind a second-leg comeback in their Champions League last eight tie. His team produced every trick in the book, some of them not so endearing, as the latter stages of the game descended into a mass brawl with a red card shown to Felipe.
City brought with them a first-leg advantage from the Etihad after Kevin De Bruyne scored what turned out to be the decisive goal of the tie. The quarter-final was billed as a massive clash in styles. Guardiola's possession-based, dominant approach against Simeone's defensive sucker punch.
The pair had met before in Europe, with Simeone edging it in 2016, but this time the City boss was victorious in an incredibly hostile Wanda Metropolitano atmosphere. The Argentine was asked if he felt his counterpart was in any way disrespectful, but seemed to pour water on that school of thought whilst suggesting some of Guardiola's comments have wrangled him.
Simeone said: "I don’t have to have that sort of opinion. I don’t think he will talk badly or talk well. Often, people who talk really well, and are really clever, they manage to praise you with contempt. But those of us who perhaps have a smaller vocabulary are not so stupid either."
City were forced to dig deep in the second-half as they held onto their one-goal lead. Atletico were seeking an equaliser which saw the visitors veer away from their usual style. Simeone was asked if he felt the English side adopted some of his tactics and replied: "I think football has a lot of different facets and it’s not my place to say if our rivals were playing well or not, or what kind of football they were playing."
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Guardiola dismissed the idea that he had been critical of his opponents, insisting his colleague can employ whatever tactics he sees fit. “I have only ever had good words to say about him," said the City boss. "He can play however he wants, of course. I would never say otherwise. All I said was that it is very hard. And they know how to do that better than anyone in the world.”
The Argentine, who was booked late on in the game, also hit back at suggestions he was sarcastically applauding the visitors, instead claiming he was trying to whip up the home crowd. "I never applauded the rival bench or our rivals," he added. "I was applauding our fans in one side of the stadium and the other side of the stadium. I was applauding everyone who was behind us for the whole of the 90 minutes and I wanted to give them my thanks.
"Our players were giving the people that energy and the people were giving it back, but of course we couldn’t give them what we all wanted which was going through."
