Roger Schmidt Feeling No Extra Heat

Coach Roger Schmidt brushed off suggestions he was feeling extra heat ahead of out-of-form Bayer Leverkusen’s Champions League round of 16 first leg against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday.
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The German team have won just one Bundesliga game out of five since the winter break to drop to sixth in the table and defeat against Atletico would compound the pressure on the attack-minded Schmidt.
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“Nothing changes, you always have pressure,” the softly-spoken coach told a news conference on Tuesday. “You always need to win the next game.
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“We are happy to be allowed to play in the Champions League at this stage and there are not many teams left in Europe who can claim that.”
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Leverkusen, runners-up in 2002 when there was a second group section instead of a knockout round, have never won a game at this stage of the competition.
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“We earned it and now we want to deliver our best performance and that’s the only thing that is on my mind at the moment,” said Schmidt.
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“We want to show our fans from the first minute that we are not without chances.”
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Leverkusen have a tough task against last season’s runners-up but are hoping to rediscover the spectacular attacking form they showed at times earlier in the season.
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La Liga champions Atletico have lost only one of their nine away games in the competition since September 2013, winning five of them.
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“It is very difficult to play against a team like Atletico,” Schmidt said. “But I am confident we will get our chances.
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“They like to play with long balls but we are used to that, we know how to tackle that. They have a lot of quality on the second ball and with (Mario) Mandzukic they have a good forward.”
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The return leg is in Spain on March 17.