RANKKY

🚨Giuliano Simeone on his altercation with Julián Alvarez at full time after Atlético Madrid defeat to Barcelona: 🗣️ Giuliano Simeone: “When the referee blew the whistle, I didn’t even celebrate or speak to anyone. I walked straight towards Julián. I was angry. Very angry. And I asked him, ‘What happened to you tonight?’ He looked at me and didn’t say anything. So I asked him again. ‘What happened to you?’ Because I needed an answer. Not tomorrow. Not in the dressing room. Not when everyone has calmed down. Right there. You cannot play a match like this against Barcelona, have those opportunities, miss them one after another, and then just walk away as if nothing happened. I told him, ‘Julián, you wanted this match.’ ‘You wanted this opponent.’ ‘You spent last summer talking about how much you loved Barcelona and how much you wanted to play for them.’ ‘Now they are standing in front of you, and we give you the chances to hurt them, and you don’t take them.’ I was furious. Because I’m watching my teammate come into one of the biggest matches of the season and play like the chances are going to keep coming forever. They don’t. Against Barcelona, you get one chance. Maybe two. Tonight, Julián had enough chances to win the game for us. And every time the ball came to him, I was thinking, ‘This is it.’ Then nothing. Another chance. Nothing. Another one. Nothing. At one point I looked at him and said, ‘Do you love Barcelona so much that you can’t score against them?’ He didn’t like that. He stepped towards me and said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I told him, ‘I’m talking about the chances.’ ‘I am talking about the chances we gave you.’ ‘We could have been three or four goals ahead before Barcelona even had the opportunity to come back into this game.’ He said he was trying. I told him, ‘I know you’re trying. That’s not the point.’ The point is that at this level, trying is not enough. You have to punish teams. Especially teams like Barcelona. Especially when you have spent months talking about how much you wanted to be there. That is what made me angry. Because imagine being his teammate. You are running, fighting, defending, putting your body on the line. Then you look up and see your striker with another opportunity. You think, ‘Please, Julián, finish this.’ And he misses again. At that point, what am I supposed to do? Smile? Tell him it’s okay? No. I told him exactly what I felt. I said, ‘If you wanted to play for Barcelona so badly, tonight was your chance to show them what they missed.’ And that made him angry. He told me not to bring Barcelona into it. I said, ‘Why not?’ ‘You brought Barcelona into it last summer.’ ‘You talked about them. You talked about loving them. You talked about wanting to wear their shirt.’ ‘So tonight, when they are standing in front of you, why can’t I mention them?’ There was a moment where we just looked at each other. And I could see he was hurt. But I was hurt too. Because this wasn’t just about Julián missing chances. It was about Atlético missing an opportunity. We had Barcelona where we wanted them. We had the chances. We had the stadium. We had the momentum. And we let it go. So when the whistle went, I needed to tell him. I told him, ‘Don’t take this personally. Take it as a footballer.’ ‘Big players are judged by what they do when the biggest moments arrive.’ Tonight, the moments arrived. They came to you. And you didn’t take them. Then Barcelona punished us. That is football. And maybe tomorrow I will speak to Julián differently. But tonight? Tonight I needed him to understand why I was angry. Because I don’t care that he once wanted Barcelona. Tonight, he was my teammate. And my teammate had the chance to destroy Barcelona. He didn’t. That’s why I walked away from him. Not because I don’t believe in Julián. Because I believe he is capable of much more than what he showed tonight.”