Watertight Atletico visit vulnerable Leverkusen
Griezmann hopes last season’s runners-up can make another fast start when the action begins in last-16 first-leg match
Atletico Madrid arrive at Bayer Leverkusen for today’s Champions League last-16, first-leg clash hoping for a sixth straight clean sheet in Europe, with Mario Mandzukic and Antoine Griezmann hunting more goals.
Between them the pair have already bagged 37 goals this season as the 2014 Champions League finalists look to leave Leverkusen’s BayArena with an advantage in the hunt for a quarter-final place.
Former Bayern Munich striker Mandzukic has already shown Pep Guardiola what he is missing in Bavaria by scoring 20 goals, while Griezmann has hit the net 17 times for Atletico this season.
French midfielder Griezmann says Diego Simeone’s Atletico need a good start in Leverkusen, just as they had in Saturday’s 3-0 home league win over Almeria to stay third in the table.
“We need to keep working and enjoying the games like we are at the moment,” said the Frenchman after netting in the 20th and 29th minutes following Mandzukic’s 13th-minute penalty.
“We need to face all the games the same way, trying to win and coming out flying from the start.”
The only casualty for Atletico is midfielder Koke, who will miss the first leg with a hamstring injury having scored two goals and provided four assists in the group stages.
Olympiacos were the last team to score against Atletico when they enjoyed a 3-2 group stage win in Greece back in September.
Since then, Atletico have scored 12 goals without reply in Europe, including a 5-0 thumping of Malmo and a 4-0 thrashing of Olympiacos in their return match.
Heavy odds
Leverkusen have never won a last-16 tie in the competition’s current format and will have to work hard to change that statistic against an Atletico side who finished top of Group A ahead of Juventus. Leverkusen are winless in their last three league matches and have had little to cheer about at this stage of the competition in recent years. They were thumped 4-0 at home by Paris Saint Germain last season on the way to a 6-1 aggregate defeat. That came two years after Lionel Messi ran riot when Bayer’s 3-1 defeat in Leverkusen preceded a 7-1 humiliation away to Barcelona in 2012, when Messi netted five times.
Having dropped
to
sixth
in the Bundesliga after Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Augsburg, qualifying for next season’s Champions League is of more pressing concern than progressing in this season’s edition. “Of course I am concerned for our European qualification for next season,” said Leverkusen’s director of sport Rudi Voeller.