Uefa looked set to open an inquiry into images of Carvajal seemingly moving his mouth towards Mandzukic's outstretched arm during the second half of the 0-0 draw at the Vicente Calderon.
However, the Croatia international promptly defused the situation by taking to Twitter the following morning to say: "There was no controversy: no bite, no nothing."
Koke feels that Mandzukic should be lauded for his old-school attitude to on-field clashes.
"It's to Mandzu's credit that he did what he did, by saying there was no bite," the midfielder is quoted as saying by AS. "I think it's great he came out in [Carvajal's] defence.
"There's no point in going on about it. What happens on the pitch, stays on the pitch."
Koke is instead looking forward to next week's second leg at the Santiago Bernabeu, believing that Atletico still have every chance of progressing to the semi-finals thanks to the away-goals rule.
"There are no favourites, but if there were it would be Madrid," the Spain international added. "They won the competition last year and they're playing at home.
"But we're still in it. We'll give it everything to go through. It's 0-0 and they're in front of their own fans but, at the end of the day, it's 11 against 11 and if we score it'll count as double.
"From the first leg we learned that they will come out with a lot of intensity, as we saw during the first half.
"In the second half we were able to match that intensity. They are a great team and we will have to come out as strong as them or even more so."
No comments:
Post a Comment