Overwhelmed by strong Simeone side | OneFootball

Early Atletico blitz as we lose 1-4

Our fourth home fixture of the Champions League season failed to bring a positive result. A sharp Atletico Madrid side raced into an early lead and condemned us to a 1-4 defeat to finish the league phase of the UEFA Champions League with. Adam Daghim did manage a fine consolation goal in stoppage time, however.

Match summary

In contrast to our clash with Real last week, this time it was the Madrid side who made the better start and threatened from the word go. We were unable to keep up with the vibrant visitors and in the fifth minute, Diego's son Giuliano Simeone took advantage of too much space in the penalty area to fire his side into the lead (5').

A chance for an equaliser came a little later as Adam Daghim was played in superbly by Dorgeles Nene but did not connect well enough with the ball (12'). Making it even worse, Atleti then were able to race forward right away and take advantage of poor positioning from Schlager for Antoine Griezmann to make it 2-0 (13').

After a quieter spell, Atletico sat back and did what they are famous for - defend doggedly. We had much more of the play and opportunities to get a goal back – via Gloukh and Nene – but we lacked the clinical touch in front of goal.

We then suffered a further blow in first-half stoppage time. We lost the ball in our build-up play and star striker Griezmann converted clinically (45+1').

We bravely bore down on the Atletico goal at the start of the second half, but our attacking endeavours had the unfortunate consequence of leaving us short of defenders when Atletico broke away. One such counter-attack was seized on by Diego Simeone's side in the second period to make it 4-0 – as Marcos Llorente smashed in on the right (63'). That knocked the wind out of our sails as the encounter seemed to be ebbing away towards a big defeat.

There was still time for one late twist, however, as our Red Bulls finally got to hear their goal music on the European stage! A long pass from Schlager was smashed by Daghim spectacularly into the top corner as we got our first Champions League goal at home this season in a 1-4 defeat.

Now our focus is fully on the domestic game - with the Austrian winter break over on Sunday (2 February) we go away to LASK in the UNIQA ÖFB Cup quarter-finals at 18:15 CET.

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Thomas Letsch

Alex Schlager

Line-up

Substitutions

Clark for Nene, Kawamura for Diambou (both 58'), Ratkov for Yeo (67'), Bajcetic for Capaldo, Morgalla for Terzic (both 85')

Yellow cards

Capaldo (57' tactical foul), Blank (66' foul)

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