{"id":89207,"date":"2026-05-02T19:18:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/arsenal-vs-atletico-madrid-simeone-makes-11-changes-to-laliga-team-ahead-of-champions-league-semifinal\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T19:18:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:18:36","slug":"arsenal-vs-atletico-madrid-simeone-makes-11-changes-to-laliga-team-ahead-of-champions-league-semifinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/arsenal-vs-atletico-madrid-simeone-makes-11-changes-to-laliga-team-ahead-of-champions-league-semifinal\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal vs. Atl\u00e9tico Madrid: Simeone makes 11 changes to LaLiga team ahead of Champions League semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Diego Simeone made 11 changes to his Atl\u00e9tico Madrid starting lineup for their LaLiga visit to Valencia &#8212; completely overhauling the side that faced Arsenal in their Champions League semifinal playoff first leg on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Atl\u00e9tico lined up with a heavily rotated side featuring a mix of fringe and academy players, with Juan Musso in goal and a back line including Cl\u00e9ment Lenglet and Robin Le Normand.<\/p>\n<p>Antoine Griezmann came off the bench 17 minutes from time, while Giuliano Simeone, Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez, Alexander S\u00f8rloth and D\u00e1vid Hancko were among the names left out of the squad.<\/p>\n<p>Seven academy players featured for Atleti, of which three came off the bench &#8212; but the youthful side delivered as Iker Luque and Miguel Llorente ensured a 2-0 win.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><picture><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0929%2Fr1393636_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=570&amp;format=jpg, https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0929%2Fr1393636_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=1140&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(min-width: 376px)\"><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0929%2Fr1393636_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=375, https:\/\/a4.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0929%2Fr1393636_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=750&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(max-width: 375px)\"><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/><\/source><\/source><\/picture><figcaption class=\"photoCaption\">Diego Simeone made 11 changes from the side that drew 1-1 with Arsenal on Wednesday.\u00a0<cite>Getty Images<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Focus clearly shifted to rest for Atl\u00e9tico, who gave Wednesday&#8217;s starters six days&#8217; rest before Tuesday&#8217;s return leg in N7, with the tie tantalisingly poised at 1-1.<\/p>\n<p>The first leg was defined by penalties and VAR controversy as \u00c1lvarez and Viktor Gy\u00f6keres both scored from the spot.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not the first time Simeone has looked to his wider squad to prioritise Europe this term, when he made 10 changes for their LaLiga clash vs. Getafe on March 14 &#8212; sandwiched by both legs of their round of 16 tie vs. Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Real Madrid&#8217;s \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa brushes aside Jos\u00e9 Mourinho links ahead of key LaLiga clash<br \/>&#8211;<\/strong> <strong>How Barcelona can wrap up LaLiga title with Cl\u00e1sico win over rivals Real Madrid<\/strong><br \/><strong>&#8211; Barcelona to feature Olivia Rodrigo as shirt sponsor vs. Real Madrid<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Arsenal, meanwhile, made five changes from their trip to Madrid for their Premier League clash vs. Fulham.<\/p>\n<p>Captain Martin Odegaard was left out of the squad, while Mart\u00edn Zubimendi, Gabriel Martinelli, Noni Madueke and Piero Hincapi\u00e9 dropped to the bench.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Atl\u00e9tico XI vs. Arsenal, on Wednesday: <\/strong>Oblak; Llorente, Pubill, Hancko, Ruggeri; Simeone, Koke, Cardoso, Lookman; Griezmann, \u00c1lvarez<\/p>\n<p><strong>Atl\u00e9tico XI vs. Valencia on Saturday: <\/strong>Musso, D\u00edaz, Lenglet, Le Normand, Bo\u00f1ar; Morcillo, Vargas, Mendoza, N. Molina; Almada, Belaid<\/p>\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-tournament\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/48656815\/visualisation\/27372725?2490397\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/visualisation\/27372725\/thumbnail\" width=\"100%\" alt=\"tournament visualization\"\/><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diego Simeone made 11 changes to his Atl\u00e9tico Madrid starting lineup for their LaLiga visit to Valencia &#8212; completely overhauling the side that faced Arsenal in their Champions League semifinal playoff first leg on Wednesday. Atl\u00e9tico lined up with a heavily rotated side featuring a mix of fringe and academy players, with Juan Musso in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-transfers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/r1393636_1296x729_16-9.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}