Simeone hopes Oblak continues with Atlético next season

Atlético Madrid as good as assured themselves of second place in LaLiga on Saturday with a win over Getafe in the suburbs of Madrid. A Jan Oblak penalty save kept Koke’s goal from separating the sides and Diego Simeone says he hopes to keep the keeper beyond the summer because “every great team has a great keeper.”

“We only had the league in our minds,” Simeone said when asked about fielding a strong team with the Europa League final days away. “We don’t know how to compete any other way and we will continue in this way forever. We just finished a very hard game against a competitive team in a game that had a lot of friction. At the start, we gave then a surprise by playing Koke in the enganche role and we disorganised their defence. We played a great first half.”

On Oblak’s penalty, Cholo said: “You can see he saved it with his fingers and his whole arm was outstretched. I am happy to have him with us. He arrived with a lot of excitement at Atleti and it cost him a bit to train with us but now he is amongst the best keepers in the world and I hope that we have him with us and he is happy to be here.”

Simeone would not speak too much about Lyon and Wednesday’s game against Olympique Marseille but said it was an option to play Koke in the role he occupied on Saturday. Further, he indicated Atlético will play with whatever system is necessary — like they have been all year.