´We need to be more aggressive´ – Koke rallies Atletico after Leverkusen loss

Koke has urged Atletico Madrid to be “more aggressive” following their Champions League defeat by Bayer Leverkusen at BayArena.

Diego Simeone’s side suffered their first loss in this season’s competition, after the hosts struck twice in the final six minutes of the Group B clash.

With the contest heading for a stalemate, Robert Andrich fired Leverkusen ahead before Moussa Diaby rounded off a quickfire counter to seal the points.

Atletico have now lost seven of their last eight Champions League away games in Germany, where you must go back to a 1-0 victory over FC Carl Zeiss Jena in the 1961-62 Cup Winners’ Cup for their most recent clean sheet.

And the skipper issued a rallying cry to his team-mates, telling Movistar: “I felt like we had more or less control over the match because not a lot was happening. But then in two counter-attacks, they score two goals.

“I think we can do a lot more, we can give more – we’ve shown that in other matches. We have to be self-critical.

3 – For the first time since 17th september 1997, for almost 25 years, three German clubs have won a #UCL match on the same day – back then Bayern, Leverkusen and Dortmund did so. Bundesliga. pic.twitter.com/HNpKhauO8U

— OptaFranz (@OptaFranz) September 13, 2022

“We knew that they had fast players and that’s how they hurt us. We need to be more forceful in both areas, more aggressive – that’s one of the keys. They deserved the victory tonight.”

Meanwhile, head coach Diego Simeone urged his players to swiftly put the defeat behind with a double-header against Club Brugge to come in Group B.

“It was a game where we couldn’t figure it out before 70 or 80 minutes,” the Argentine said. Especially in the first half, we had two or three plays to exploit them better, more vision of the game to be able to hurt from the possibilities that were given. We didn’t take advantage of them.

“You have to forget this match quickly. It is clear that the group is competitive. Bruges won… we will have two matches in a row with them. They will be hard and difficult. It will be tight, as always in the Champions League.”