Simeone tasks his defenders with stopping the BBC in Milan

Diego Simeone, the Atlético Madrid manager, focused heavily on specific and individual defensive work with his back four – Diego Godín, José María Giménez, Juanfran Torres and Filipe Luis – during Tuesday’s training session.

Following their two-day break to recuperate from Saturday’s league finish against Celta, Los Rojiblancos returned to Majadahonda to begin their preparations for next Wednesday’s Champions League final. Cholo kicked proceedings off by drilling his back line on every aspect of danger they might encounter in the face of Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.

First off, Filipe Luis and Juanfran were kept on their toes during a highly demanding tactical and fitness-orientated exercise in which the two full backs had to cope with wave after wave of attack. The Brazilian was made to deal with two on one situations, passes in between the lines and high balls over the top, as too was his Spanish counterpart, who also worked on clearing aerial balls.

Afterwards, while the rest of their team-mates played possession football in confined spaces, Diego Godín was put through his paces to work on counteracting the kind of backward movement favoured by Karim Benzema, under the watchful gaze of his manager.

At the same time, Germán ‘Mono’ Burgos, Simeone’s faithful assistant, worked with Giménez, who was kept busy closing down youth team players. The larger than life number two talked to the Uruguayan centre-half about offering cover and emphasised the importance of cutting out counter-attacks using speed. Curiously Stefan Savic trained with the rest of the team-mates.