No love lost as Inzaghi hosts Simeone’s Atleti

Milan, February 19

Inter Milan manager Simone Inzaghi is looking forward to taking on his former teammate Diego Simeone when his side play Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, but is unsure what to expect from the unpredictable Spanish side.

Inzaghi and Simeone were members of the Lazio side which won a Serie A and Coppa Italia double in 2000, and they come face to face tomorrow when the Argentine brings his Atletico side to the San Siro for the first leg of their last-16 tie.

“Clearly, tomorrow it will be a pleasure to see Diego as an opponent again,” Inzaghi told a press conference today. “He was a great teammate, we won in Rome with Lazio, then he went to Atletico, but we never lost sight of each other.”

Atletico are fourth in La Liga and after two games without a win — defeats in a Copa del Rey semifinal first leg by Athletic Bilbao and in the league by Sevilla — they bounced back with a 5-0 win over Las Palmas on Saturday.

Inzaghi conceded it was difficult to know what to expect from Simeone’s side. “Predicting what will happen tomorrow night is not easy, seeing Atletico’s last games they have changed a lot, I saw against Las Palmas and they were very aggressive,” he said. “In the cup it wasn’t the same attitude, the penultimate game in Seville was different again.” — Reuters