Atletico Madrid players Jan Oblak and Stefan Savic insist their side are happy with their performance against Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final.
Atletico looked like they would frustrate City at the Etihad and take a draw back to the Wanda Metropolitano for next week's second leg, until Kevin De Bruyne finally broke their stubborn resistance to give the Blues a 1-0 lead.
Diego Simeone's side played very defensively to combat City's attacking threats, regularly putting 11 men behind the ball to restrict the space available to their opponents. In fact, they played so deep, they failed to have a single shot for the first time ever under Simeone.
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That approach was by design, though, according to former City player Savic, who lined up at the heart of the Atletico defence. "We know against teams like City who play a good game with lots of possession," he said.
"They have quality players, we can't press them high for 90 minutes because we will suffer. We don't suffer with defending, it's our style of play and we can be so dangerous after defending our goal and go out on the counter-attack."
Goalkeeper Oblak echoed Savic's assessment, insisting that they only let their guard down once in the match. "We all knew that this would be a complicated experience. We came looking for a good result, we lost but at 1-0 down the tie is still very much all to play for," he said.
"We defended really well throughout the match with the sole exception of their goal. City play using possession as a strength but we were clear-headed all night, we closed space down and I don't think it was specifically their substitutions that changed the game – just that one moment."
Looking ahead to the second leg next week, Savic warned City that they will be more adventurous as they aim to progress to the semi-finals. "It will be different, we need to win the game and attack more," he said. "Infront of our fans, almost 70,000, it will be a really hot atmosphere."
Oblak agreed, saying: "Everything is still possible because we'll be at home in a match which is still up for grabs, and at Atleti we always believe."
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