(Football news) Manchester United will be high on confidence after Ronaldo’s hattrick against Tottenham last weekend as United fans will be hoping that they can get this all important win. The contest is delicately poised at 1-1 following the first leg draw at the Wanda Metropolitano. Anthony Elanga came off the bench to rescue a draw for United after Joao Felix had put Atletico ahead.
The Red Devils were far from their best in the first leg, with Atletico were in charge of the contest for long periods, but ultimately came up short because of Anthony Elanga who came off the bench to score a leveller in the 80th minute, meaning that a win for the Red Devils will see them advance to the Uefa Champions League quarter finals after three years. The 20-time Premier League champions have won seven of their previous 11 round-of-16 ties, but this will be their first meeting with Atletico since November 1991 at home, when the two sides last played it ended in a 1-1 draw in the second leg of their second-round contest in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. United will be hoping that Cristiano Ronaldo inspires them to qualify for the next round as the Portugal international has netted 25 times against the Rojiblancos during his career, making them his 2nd favourite opposition.
For Atletico Madrid they will enter the contest on the back of a 2-1 victory over Cadiz in La Liga, meaning that the La Liga champions have now been victorious in their last four league matches. The Spanish side lost to Chelsea in last season's round of 16, but other than that they have reached the quarter-finals in five of their last eight Champions League campaigns under Diego Simeone. Atletico have the experience of playing in these crucial away leg matches as they have been here in five of their previous eight round-of-16 ties, subsequently they have won nine of their 12 two-legged knockout contests against English opposition, but the club are currently on barren run against English opposition having lost twice against Liverpool in the group stage of this season's Champions League.
For Manchester United, they will be without Mason Greenwood due to a club suspension, but the likes of Bruno Fernandes, Luke Shaw and Scott McTominay could all come back into the side. As for Atletico, Yannick Carrasco will again miss out through suspension, while Matheus Cunha, Daniel Wass, Sime Vrsaljko and Thomas Lemar are out through injury. Mario Hermoso, Geoffrey Kondogbia and Jose Gimenez had also been viewed as huge injury concerns.
Ralf Rangnick in his press conference regarding Ronaldo said that "I'm not worried that he's not been able to recover, he's always been a person that looks after himself and his body, He knows what to do. If he can score another three goals, we will see. It's not easy to score three goals against this team at all. His overall performance [against Tottenham] was good, if not very good, and this is what we hope to see from him again tomorrow night."
He added, "It's not just about Cristiano, it's about the whole team. We saw in the first half in Madrid, what we shouldn't do, how we shouldn't play and this was a big topic for us yesterday and today, pre-match before tomorrow's game. We have to know what it takes and tactically takes and the rest is about energy."
Simeone talked about how the midfield battle will be key in the match. He said: “Because of their characteristics in midfield, and ours in that area, it will be a dynamic game. There will be high pressure from them at the start and we will try to take advantage of the counter attack.”
He spoke about Ronaldo saying “When you have players like that, you always need to be on your guard. They have some other great players that play at a really high level and have to be aware of all of them.”
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