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Champions League: How Diego Simeone and Zinedine Zidane view the clash in Milan

By Wires
Sports News Champions League: How Diego Simeone and Zinedine Zidane view the clash in Milan
MAY 28, 2016 LISTEN

Zinédine Zidane, Madrid coach
Ronaldo has been feeling a bit of pain but he's OK. He'll be there 100%. He has a little niggle, but that disappears when you're going to play in a Champions League final.

It's going to be a difficult game for sure, extremely difficult, but we already know this and we're prepared for it. We've had two weeks to prepare and now the players want the ball to start rolling.

I see the players the same as in Lisbon. We're one game away. We're all very happy to be in this final. We're ready for this, and that's the big word: we're ready to play. We've worked hard to achieve this. I'm happy with the work we've carried out. We've suffered a lot, but reaching a final without suffering is impossible. We know how to do that and that's what we'll have to do again, no doubt. In a final it's perfectly normal to have difficulties. If you want to win it, you have to suffer.

Losing will not be a failure. Failure is in your attitude, or if you don't give your all. It's just a football game. You never know what will happen but I can tell you we're very prepared. [Since 2014] some players have left but the idea of this club is always the same. It's the great story: unity, effort, companionship and, when the time comes to play, quality and leaving everything on the field. We want to repeat that.

When the match begins I'll be a bit more tense [than as a player] but that's usual too – it's part of the coaching job. I like it, I like this kind of pressure. I've experienced it as a player but as a coach it's completely different. Carlo Ancelotti used to tell me that often. He told me before the final in Lisbon: "I hope you experience this some day as head coach." Here we are, so I keep thinking of Carlo.

Above all you have to defend well, first and foremost, especially when you don't have the ball. On top of that, we have our weapons to work well when we're attacking. What we really have to do is run: run, run, run .

Diego Simeone, Atlético coach
The game will be very tense, very even, especially at the beginning. Casemiro enables them to regroup better if they lose the ball. Whoever wins the early battles in midfield will have an advantage – Madrid, with their technical qualities, might try to play more.

The club, the players, the group we've created, is reinventing itself continuously. That's what is most valuable at this club. Everyone works with the idea of improving, growing, and that's life – if you work, work, work, eventually you get what you want.

To play a final is absolutely fantastic, to win it is even better. That experience makes you want to continue living these moments. It's not easy; you have to pick yourself up, keep inventing yourself, change the players but not change the commitment, the values, the work. If you keep working, you're insistent, you can achieve things.

We're not really going to change much for this game – neither team will. Madrid haven't changed much [since 2014]; we've changed more but we have the same structure. Casemiro makes Madrid a lot more dangerous on the counterattack – that's how they played in both [semi-final] legs against Manchester City. Many people think that's bad – not me. There could be different situations during the game but it's clear that, if you give Madrid space, they're very dangerous.

I like to have 113 years of history on my back – I like that, I love the pressure. Only winning would satisfy me.

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