Athletic Club achieved something that very few teams have achieved this season against PSG, as the team coached by Luis Enrique went to zero. It is true that the Parisian team had the best chances, even going so far as to send a ball into the crossbar of Unai Simón’s goal, but this is not an obstacle to harm the defensive work of the red and whites, in particular of a colossal Unai Simón. His good work was such that the Asturian coach of PSG praised the figure of the Athletic de Vitoria goalkeeper. Indeed, once the referee declared the end of the match, Luis Enrique and Unai Simón exchanged their opinions on the San Mamés green.
During the four and a half years that he was coach, Unai Simón, as is currently the case with De la Fuente, was someone very important for Luis Enrique. The coach praised his game and defended him publicly even after critical matches, as happened during Euro 2020. The Asturian did not forget. “I have a lot of affection for him. You don’t remember the criticism from the press when we bet on him. Yes. I’m delighted. He deserves it. He’s a very high level footballer. We took a risk in signing him. He has more than demonstrated the level he has reached, a high level to play in any team in the world. I already told him at the end: ‘You have to play the best game against me…’, he joked.
In this sense, we have gone further. “He was incredible. He played wonderfully. Otherwise, we could have won,” laments the PSG coach. Luis Enrique complimented Unai Simón, but also his players. Despite the significant losses of players like Dembélé or Chevalier, in the opinion of the Asturians, they play better as a team than last year and subsequently won the Champions League. “We are champions, but I am very optimistic for the future,” said Luis Enrique, aware of what awaits him in San Mamés. “Before the match, the message was clear that if anyone made a mistake, they would overtake us. That didn’t happen. At half-time I told them that they were going to slow down, that they wouldn’t be able to keep up and that if we managed to expand the field, we would create danger. In that half hour we were superior,” said the Spaniard, for whom, despite everything, “it would have been vital to win.”
If Luis Enrique did not hesitate to praise the figure of Simón, Ernesto Valverde did the same, “happy” with the final draw. “It was a very difficult match, very complicated because the champion is in front of us and we had to work hard from the first minute to the last. We knew that if they kept the pressure we would have difficulties,” he commented. And there, in these difficult times, the figure of Unai Simón stood out forcefully. “In these kinds of matches, if you want to achieve something positive, your goalkeeper has to be good and today Unai supported us, especially with that save before the break. Being able to go 0-0 there strengthened us. And in the second half he supported us in the bad moments”, he thanked.
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