Atletico Madrid travel to face Real Madrid on Saturday in relatively good form. Los Rojiblancos have won four of their last five La Liga matches, and have not lost since Barcelona came away from the Metropolitano with a narrow victory at the start of January.
Atleti’s last defeat in all competitions came against their city rivals last month in the Copa del Rey. Alvaro Morata gave them the lead, before goals from Rodrygo, Karim Benzema and Vinicius Jr secured passage into the semi-finals of the competition for Los Blancos.
Atleti officials were left seething at the referee’s decision not to send off Real Madrid’s Dani Ceballos for a second bookable offence in that match, and club captain Koke hopes that his side will be on the right side of luck this weekend, as per Diario AS.
“We played a great game. We need those small details, to be 100% focused and make a perfect game to be able to beat Madrid in their stadium. It’s not easy at all. That fortune and those details hopefully fall on our side, as it did not happen in the Cup.”
Koke has insisted that Atleti are in a good place at the moment, as they look to overtake Real Sociedad for third place in the La Liga table with a victory at the Santiago Bernabeu.
“We are in a much better dynamic. Before the World Cup we didn’t find the game we have now. We also had chances and they didn’t go in, but now we are more effective and we don’t concede as many goals. You need that to win games.”
Atletico Madrid will be quietly confident of securing a positive result on Saturday, especially with Real Madrid set to be without two key players for the fixture.
