Trippier: "Simeone used to say 'you can only pray against Messi'"
Spending three years in Spain with Atletico, the Newcastle United right-back reveals that Diego Simeone believed only prayers can be effective against "unique" Lionel Messi.
helped Atletico lift the La Liga trophy in the 2020-21 season before eventually joining Newcastle United for a £12m fee in 2022. Sharing his experience of trying to stop Lionel Messi, the England international told
Goal:
"You can't to be fair.
"It's funny because obviously Simeone was the manager [and] they are both Argentinian. Even he would say before the meetings, just basically 'pray.' You just can't do anything. You can't organize or set up to stop him because he's that unique."
On his experience with
Atletico, Trippier added:
"Hopefully many more English players do it because I learned so much experience playing out there with Simeone.
“One-to-one, the night before we went for the title against Valladolid he pulled me in. He showed me a video of when I signed, the press conference, where I said what I wanted to achieve with Atletico Madrid. I said that day I wanted to win the title. He remembered that and wanted to remind me.
"I learned a lot about myself as well. Go out and enjoy the game, go and enjoy the life out in Spain, the food, the weather. It was an incredible couple of years."
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