Latest news on Atlético Madrid – RB Leipzig
Good afternoon everyone. We are kicking off with the live narration of the Atlético Madrid – RB Leipzig match, corresponding to the first day of the Champions League. A great match to start off this exciting and tremendously fun new format of the competition. One only needs to take a look at what happened in the matches played between Tuesday and Wednesday to realize how competitive this Champions League is going to be.
Atlético Madrid approaches this edition of the top continental competition focused on performing as well as possible. To do this, they need to start on the right foot and will look to achieve that with a victory against RB Leipzig.
There are several novelties in this new format of the Champions. One of them is that there is a unique group in which the top eight qualify directly for the knockout stage, while those ranked between ninth and 24th must earn their spot in an intermediate round. This system penalizes draws and encourages teams to score as many goals as possible, as this is the second tiebreaker criterion.
On the sports side, Diego Pablo Simeone provided the list of summoned players this morning with the known absences of Pablo Barrios and Thomas Lemar, both injured. The Argentine coach has completed the call-up with youth players Javi Serrano and Antonio Gomis. The rojiblancos are in good form, unbeaten since the start of the season, with two consecutive victories propelling them to second place in LaLiga.
RB Leipzig managed by Marco Rose is third in the Bundesliga. They had won their first three official matches, one in the Cup and two in the Bundesliga, but they drew at home against Union Berlin in their last league match. The team arrives in Madrid with the only absence of young Assan Ouedraogo and will feature a familiar face for the Metropolitano crowd, the Belgian Arthur Vermeeren, who returns to what was his home until last month.
The match starts at 21:00 hours at the Cívitas Metropolitano stadium and will be officiated by Slovak referee Ivan Kruzliak. The VAR will be Tomasz Kwiatkowski. The match has been introduced. We will keep you updated with all the developments around this fantastic match. Let’s get started!