Liverpool’s head coach Arne Slot highlighted the core values exhibited by his team in their Champions League triumph over Atletico Madrid.

Liverpool boss Arne Slot praised his team’s performance against Atletico Madrid, explaining that his team needed to match the Spanish side’s mentality to have stood a chance in the match.

As Pulse Sports reported, Liverpool needed a late Virgil Van Dijk header to beat Diego Simeone’s side 3-2. The Reds raced into a 2-0 lead inside six minutes, but Atletico showed their strong mentality and equalised the match through a Marcos Llorente brace.

However, Liverpool dug deep, and their flurry of late attacks resulted in a Virgil Van Dijk winner from a corner kick routine.

What Arne Slot said

Slot praised Atletico Madrid’s performance in the game and noted that his team had to show similar mentality levels as their rivals to win the tie.

“If you want to beat a team like Atletico, which has an unbelievable mentality, you have to beat them with their weapon as well, and that is mentality, and that is what we showed again today that we can beat them with mentality,” he said, per the BBC.

“I think we should’ve made it easier for ourselves. At 2-0 first half, we got more than a few chances to make a third. At 2-1 second half, we hit the post, we were so close a few times and if the margin is only one goal something can always happen, and it happened.

“A little bit deflection, I’m not sure, but second ball went in, but again we showed mentality because in that 10 minutes that still had to be played, we were pushing, pushing, pushing, and we scored a set-piece goal.”