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Los Rojiblancos meet the team that knocked them out of the 2019/20 Champions League. A new Champions League season begins for Atlético de Madrid on Thursday night, as Los Colchoneros welcome RB Leipzig to the Metropolitano to kick off their league phase campaign.
Atlético Madrid are playing Champions League football for a 13th consecutive season ? but this is the first without the once-standard ?group stage? format. Instead, Atlético will face eight separate opponents (four home, four away) one time each as part of the new 36-team, 144-game ?league phase? ? where finishing inside the top eight results in immediate progression to the last 16, while finishing between 9th and 24th will warrant a two-legged ?knockout tie? to reach the competition?s latter stages.
Simeone: "Leipzig is a team that works very well and can play in many ways, against Leverkusen they were in a low block and played on the counter, against Union they attacked the whole game with fast players, jumping to press. We will see what we find, we have seen both versions" pic.twitter.com/f1bc9wOMEe? The Partido a Partido Podcast (@ThePaPPod) September 18, 2024

Like Atlético, RB Leipzig are unbeaten in league play so far ? although Marco Rose?s men have faced 11 more shots than they have taken. Even still, Leipzig recently defeated last season?s unbeaten Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen and have an enviable collection of young ...