Football: Soccer-Inter’s Inzaghi unsure what to expect from Atletico and old friend Simeone

(Reuters) – Inter Milan manager Simone Inzaghi is looking forward to taking on his former team mate Diego Simeone when his side play Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, but is unsure what to expect from the unpredictable Spanish side.

Inzaghi and Simeone were members of the Lazio side which won a Serie A and Coppa Italia double in 2000, and they come face to face on Tuesday when the Argentine brings his Atletico side to the San Siro for the first leg of their last 16 tie.

“Clearly, tomorrow it will be a pleasure to see Diego as an opponent again,” Inzaghi told a press conference on Monday.

“He was a great team mate, we won in Rome with Lazio, then he went to Atletico, but we never lost sight of each other. It was clear that he was going to be a great coach, just look at what he did in 13 years at Atletico Madrid.”

Atletico are fourth in LaLiga and after two games without a win – defeats in a Copa del Rey semi-final first leg by Athletic Bilbao and in the league by Sevilla – they bounced back with a 5-0 victory over Las Palmas on Saturday. Inzaghi conceded it was difficult to know what to expect from Simeone’s side.

“Predicting what will happen tomorrow night is not easy, seeing Atletico’s last games they have changed a lot, I saw the game against Las Palmas and they were very aggressive,” the Italian said.

“In the cup it wasn’t the same attitude, the penultimate game in Seville was different again. They are a team that dribbles much more than in the past, they have a lot of technique and very good quality players.”

Simeone, who played at Inter before joining Lazio, has been manager at Atletico since 2011, and Inzaghi, whose side are nine points clear at the top of Serie A, said it would be hard to see him lasting as long at one club in Italy.

“This is difficult, I understood it over the years at Lazio and now here at Inter. In twenty days, the opinions on the players, on the coaches change quickly,” the manager said.

“It’s useless to think too much, we need to work on principles, with these guys who always have a smile on their faces.

“We’ve done six months in the best possible way, but the most important thing is these three months still to come.”

(Reporting by Trevor Stynes; Editing by Christian Radnedge)