DIEGO SIMEONE

As a player, you can be more spontaneous and instinctive, but now as a coach I have to find a psychological balance within the team.

Those who manage to keep the offensive and defensive balance are more successful. We search for balance in order to keep a stable level, which is the most difficult thing to do.

I am very respectful and always have been.

A final is a final, and is motivation in itself.

The teams that defend well are as important as those that attack well. If you don't concede goals it is much easier to win but it is all about having balance.

Football is like hunting. One second can change it all, but it's not just any second, it's a flash. The prey is there and suddenly then it's not. In an instant it's over - you won't have the chance again. You need to know which one precise second to train for, and to understand that moment.

Busquets reads everything. Players like Busquets or Xabi Alonso in midfield have the capacity to read the whole game.

Defeats are always tough, whatever you have lost, and they affect me the same way they affect anyone who loses a match - no more or less.

Football is about balance.

Whether you like Mourinho's style or not is open to discussion but he has won in different places and this has a lot of merit.

Football is wonderful because everyone can have an opinion and make judgements about what they think and see.

I say what I feel.

Diego Costa always gives us physical and moral strength. He is a very important player for the character he transmits to the team, and his potential as a football player.

It's not easy to play for Atletico. Talent is not enough, the bar is very high.

Talent has to be accompanied by effort as well, and that's shared around when you work as a team.

Artificial pitches are just one more condition for us, like sun, wind or snow; we should be able to deal with such conditions.

Catania was a real learning curve. I grew amid difficulties. In terms of courage and ideas, a lot about my Atleti comes from Italy.

If there is one thing I am, it is very hard-headed. If I want something, I go after it - and I go after it ad nauseum.

I don't drive a truck, I drive a team of footballers who work for a major club like Atleti.

My role is to take the player to his limits, to provoke him, to annoy him against me, because in this nervousness is the will to improve.

The hardest thing in life is reinventing yourself and staying at the top of your game, whilst the hardest thing in football is finding that club you want to stay at.

Football is not just in Europe, there is football all over the world so I am always open to the idea of managing anywhere in the world.

Sometimes, there isn't respect for our ways, but you can't change people.

Of course, becoming champions is something we all want, but I think that the best 'championship' for a manager is to see players like Koke, Lucas Hernandez, Angel Correa - lads who have come up from all the way down in the lower divisions - become professionals of a high standard.

Football is marvellous and there are countless ways to play and to win.