Atletico Madrid secured their first win of the new season on Saturday with a 1-0 victory over Rayo Vallecano, but Diego Simeone acknowledged his team aren’t close to being where they want to be due to the short pre-season as a result of the World Cup.
With players like Diego Godin and Antoine Griezmann having spent a good chunk of their summer in Russia, Atletico are dealing with both fatigue and less time to build chemistry.
“We know that pre-season was a difference pre-season and now we have to work during the year to recover the lost pace we didn’t have during the pre-season,” Simeone said.
See Simeone’s full comments in the video below.