Atletico Madrid arrived in the capital of Kazakhstan only a day before the match against Astana.

Obviously, Simeone didn't expect any team to adapt to the venue and the local climate, and he didn't have much hope or expectation for this away game. After a seven-hour flight and a sore butt, Simeone felt that as long as the team didn't lose, it would be a good result.

Specially Kazakh domestic media are waiting at the airport, waiting to shoot the arrival of the Atletico Madrid players.

It looks like they're normal news stories, but every Kazakh journalist expects something different from the faces of the Atletico Madrid players.

Sure enough, when the Atletico Madrid players appeared in front of them, almost everyone looked tired and unsightly, and they hunched their necks and stooped their bodies, hurried past the Kazakh reporters and boarded the bus.

There are also few Atletico Madrid fans who welcome them and cheer them on.

For ordinary Atletico Madrid fans, Kazakhstan is too far away in the heart of Asia, with expensive airfares, expensive accommodation, and a tiring journey, which makes them daunting, and there is no one to come with the team.

At that time, Atletico Madrid will face a complete "away" in this stadium, and there will be basically no Atletico Madrid fans in the stands.

Seeing the Atletico Madrid players with dark circles, puffy feet and pale faces, the Kazakh journalists smiled happily - this is what they want to see when they come to the airport!

Such a team, the laborers went on an expedition to cold Astana, and they still want to go back alive?

Think beautifully!

What you didn't do at Atletico Madrid's home stadium, you have to do it on our home turf this time!

The goal is to beat Atletico Madrid and win the Champions League for the first time in the history of club and national football!

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News of the arrival of the Atletico Madrid players in Astana that evening appeared on the television screens of Kazakhstan and Madrid, as well as Chinese fans.

You can see what the Kazakh journalists saw on the spot.

The newscasters are all voice-over: "The Atletico Madrid players are very tired, they didn't stop at the airport or give any media interviews, they just boarded the bus and went to the hotel, as if they couldn't wait to lie down on the soft and comfortable mattresses and sleep beautifully......

In addition to the arduous journey, the Atletico Madrid team also encountered a big problem when they arrived in Astana, and that was ...... Cold!

On the day when the whole Atletico Madrid team arrived in Astana, the local temperature was minus eleven degrees, and every Atletico Madrid player was beaten by the cold when he stepped out of the plane.

The plane that had been sitting for so long made them very uncomfortable, and when they encountered a cold snap, it was really "worse".

This was also mentioned in the news report, and Spanish television told Atletico Madrid fans about the temperature at that time, causing everyone to smack.

November 2nd, for Madrid, it was still autumn, not a full winter, although the temperature was a little lower than before, but also more than ten degrees above zero.

On the Astana side, it is more than 10 degrees below zero, and the temperature difference between the two places has reached almost 30 degrees, which is really hard to imagine what trouble Atletico Madrid will encounter in the game at that time......

In addition to the temperature, the venue in Astana is another issue.

Because Astana has a cold winter, it is difficult to have a football field with natural turf in winter, so the home stadium in Astana, like some Russian stadiums, is artificial turf, so as to ensure that sports matches can also be played in winter.

It's just that this is a pain for the Atletico Madrid players.

They usually play natural turf, and there is a big difference between the two, the friction coefficient is different, the foot feel is different, and the feeling is completely different.

And professional players are very sensitive to the field.

In the past, Chinese fans had a joke to satirize the national football team, saying that the turf was not good so it did not play well, which was a satire that the Chinese team did not find reasons for themselves, but only knew how to shirk responsibility. In a sense, they are sarcastically right, but from another point of view, "if the turf is not good, it will not play well" is indeed scientific.

It's not just the Chinese players who don't adapt to the artificial turf, but the European professional players have similar problems.

Therefore, on the evening of the arrival in Astana, when the whole Atletico Madrid team came to the Astana Stadium to acclimatize to the venue, the Atletico Madrid coaching staff took it very seriously and asked everyone to take this training to adapt to the venue seriously.

They didn't come in a few days in advance, so they only had one chance to get used to the field, and if they didn't get used to the artificial turf this time, the devil knows what would happen in the game.

Take the tackle, which is a common action in the game.

There is no problem making it on natural turf, it is smooth and natural, and it does not hurt.

But sliding on artificial grass, for every player who tackles the ball, it is torture, the plastic turf friction is very large, coupled with black rubber particles, the player will rub against the turf when tackling the ball to produce high temperature, which will cause the player to be "burned". And because of the lack of friction, it may also put too much burden on the player's knee ligaments.

The intensity of this training session to adapt to the venue was no less intense than that of a regular game.

Each player ended up with white steam all over their bodies, as if they had just come out of a bathhouse.

Boggs, the assistant coach who was wearing a thick down jacket and wrapped himself into a big fat man, frowned when he saw this, revealing a deeply melancholy expression.

Simeone, who was also dressed thickly, advised him: "Think about it, 'Professor'." If you think so, it's good that we played Benfica away in the last round of the group stage, not Astana, otherwise it would have been a real problem. ”

The final round of the Champions League group stage is on December 8. It's a month later, the temperature is sure to be cooler than it is now, and it may snow.

Playing in that environment will be an absolute torture for Atletico Madrid. Galatasaray's Ali Samyan Stadium is not a hellish stadium, but the Astana Arena will be a real hell.

After listening to Simeone's words, Boggs looked up at the sky and thought about it, it seemed that this was really the case, and when he thought about it, he felt much better.

"But luckily for the Turks, they came here in September, and it must not have been so cold at that time!" Boggs sighed.

"Even then, they still couldn't win. We can't take it lightly and it's going to be very, very, very ...... away It's not good to fight. ”

Simeone used three 'very's in a row to show how difficult this game was.

Boggs stared at the players who were still training on the pitch and nodded solemnly in agreement.