Former Brazil international Osvaldo Giroldo Junior popularly known as Juninho Paulista has tipped his former club Atletico Madrid to triumph over city rivals Real Madrid on Saturday and lift their first ever UEFA Champions League crown.Juninho who played for the Rojiblancos between 1997-2002 believes Diego Simeone has all it takes to come out on top on Saturday evening and stated that the Argentine coach has an edge when it comes to experience over Real Madrid’s Zinedine Zidane.
“If we see the individuals, Real Madrid have a better team than Atletico and have a player [Ronaldo] who can make a difference on the game at any time,” Juninho said in an interview with Omni Sports. “But, with Atletico Madrid, we can see a group, maybe even stronger than Real Madrid, especially with the team spirit that they have, knocking out two teams, which in my opinion, are the two bests teams in the world, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
“So for me Atletico has great momentum to go to the final and beat Real Madrid.”
It is well known that Diego Simeone’s men have a rather defensive style of play but Juninho feels they won’t rely on 100% defence on Saturday.
“This game is a rematch of the final two years ago, in which Atletico Madrid had pretty much the game in their hand, but in the last few minutes Real turned the game and maybe that has helped Simeone to learn because you can’t defend for 90 minutes.
“I think, at some point, Atletico will have to attack as well.”
“I think Simeone has more experience than Zidane. Zidane just started and is already having success, so needless to say the knowledge of football he has. But in terms of training, I think Simeone has a bit more experience than Zidane.
“They have different styles, I think you can see on the pitch that each team has the face of the coach, Real Madrid playing more offensive and Atletico playing more defensively, looking for counter-attacks, it has the face of Simeone.” The game kicks off on Saturday night as both teams will be hoping to pick up their only silverware of the season.
