The wind blows strongly in Lisbon, a city that has been forcibly converted into the capital of European football. And that the atmosphere in the streets, beyond the presence of a giant European Cup in the central Rossio Square, barely allows us to intuit that express KO tournament, invented on the run because of Covid-19, to be able to know about once to the next continental champion. In those walks Atlético that will beat Leipzig (21.00 Movistar). A spring August in the Portuguese city, like so many summers that Joao Félix lived at Benfica, dreaming of being a professional. Maybe today I will be a substitute.

The José Alvalade stadium waits in silence for football to try to beat again. Nothing to do with that last and intense visit by Atlético, two long years ago, in which the Sporting stands did not stop blowing on the neck of Jan Oblak , another former Benfica player, on the way to that uncomfortable Europa League that ended up becoming a luck of unexpected red-and-white catharsis in Marseille.

I don't feel much pressure. After so many games it is a natural thing and everything comes alone, "said the Slovenian goalkeeper, escorting his coach. Who better than him. And that Simeone already knew the Alvalade lectern, because there he sighed with relief after qualifying for those semifinals of the second European competition. Now is something else. And not just because of the caliber of the appointment. Questions come stuttering from a screen and answers stumbling back to a monitor. "Winning is not the important thing, it is the only thing," he said, paraphrasing Vince Lombardi , that famous American football coach of the 60s.

The coronavirus has demanded a change in the story. Just a few months ago, at Anfield, with no sea far away, the Champions League, with that stumble included by Klopp to give explanations after the defeat, seemed different. "All that boiling at Anfield faded after so many days in quarantine," admitted Simeone, who wanted to remember the absent Correa and Vrsaljko. "Sunday was a bit stressful, but it's common in the world," Oblak acknowledged. Until today the results of the tests carried out on the two teams, shortly before lunchtime, will not be known. In these times there are more uncertainties than certainties when the virus is involved.

A tuned hotel

Hence, the teams remain armored in their hotels. What is now called being in a bubble, as has happened in the NBA. In the Epic Sana tuning, with red and white motifs for the occasion, Atlético awaits. About seven kilometers from the mat where today he will try to get his hands on the Champions semi-finals, three years after that deluge (the last one) at the Vicente Calderón .

Lisbon still accelerates the rhythm of the athletic heart. Because there are wounds, like the one she suffered in 2014, where a Champions League slipped through her fingers, which never heal for many years to come. Today is another ending. A different ending, but a final. Only that behind the dizzying Leipzig there are two more traps, on the way to that cup that resists and that, now, without expecting it, seems closer than ever. «We are surprised that everyone sees us as favorites. Here the experience does not matter ", settled Oblak, in whose gloves are many answers to this quote.

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