Coach Stefano Pioli, after the loss against Atlético Madrid, had this to say to the microphones of Sky Sport Italia:
"There is disappointment, we were close to an important result. In 11 against 11 we played much better. I'm sorry because a little more attention was needed on the first goal, the boys made an important effort and coming out defeated complicates the classification."
Can your team stay there at these levels?
"We are here, but we are still missing that piece that can make the difference. We are missing very little, we have to stay inside the games with clarity. We played great football for half an hour, we suffered outnumbered. Very little was missing, too bad. for the fans and for my players who gave everything. A performance that must give us confidence, we played better in numerical equality."
On the refereeing
"It seemed that the opponent touched the ball first there. Kalulu has been poorly coordinated. Kessié? He was already booked. It didn't seem like a double yellow intervention in the thirtieth of the first half. The referee was certainly not the best on the pitch tonight."
Stefano Pioli also entrusted these words with SportMediaset:
"I don't think the ref was at his best tonight. The numerical inferiority forced us to play another type of game. Too bad, we came close to achieving a positive result, we are sorry not to have succeeded. There were many situations, not just the expulsion and the penalty. Half-and-half, he (the referee) always went the other way. But let's look at the good things we did in eleven against eleven. With a little more attention we could take home the victory, suffering and gritting our teeth. We still lacked a little something."
