Atletico Madrid will host Swedish Champions, Malmo FF, at the Vicente Calderon on Wednesday night in game week 3 of the UEFA Champions League group stages after beating Juventus in their second European game of the season, at the start of October.

The Los Rojiblancos' players have spoken of the need for concentration against one of the smaller sides in the competition but last year's finalists have won 18 of their last 20 UEFA competition games at the Vicente Calderon.

"He [Diego Simeone] is the best coach in the world" - Hareide

Malmo FF boss Age Hariede has labeled Atletico Madrid manager, Diego Simeone as 'the best coach in the world, describing his work at the Spanish Champions as 'impeccable'.


Hareide told Spanish newspaper, AS: "At this moment he is the best coach in the world. He's done a great job, he won the league last season and has a very well-organised side. It's a perfectly-oiled machine. His work at Atletico is impeccable."Malmo FF boss Age Hareide has labeled Diego Simeone as 'the best coach in the world', describing his work as 'impeccable'.

Atletico began their Champions League campaign with defeat to Olympiakos in an unexpected result for the Champions League finalists, Copa del Rey finalists and La Liga Champions. On October 1st they grabbed their first three points of the season in Europe at Italian Champions, Juventus.

Group A is the closest throughout the competition, with all four sides on three points.

While Olympiakos were victors against Atletico Madrid, Malmo earned three points at home to the Greek side in the last gameweek. Markus Rosenberg scored a brace to give Malmo a surprising win, in the first Champions League game in Sweden for 14 years, and a chance at progressing further in football's greatest club competition.

The last time these two sides met was 50 years ago when Atletico triumphed 5-1 in the two-legged affair between the sides in the 1966-67 European Champion Clubs' Cup.

"It will be a very difficult game. We are up against one of the two strongest teams in the group and for us that's a big motivation," said Hareide.

"We saw the game against Juventus and saw a team very difficult to beat, who are tough at home and dangerous up front.

"Together with Juventus, they are the two big favourites to get through to the next phase, although you never know...

"We want to try and get third place. Our goal is continue in a European competition. For that, to begin with, we must fight against Olympiacos."

Malmo are in the closing stages of the season as the Swedish season begins in March and ends in November. They lost 2-1 in their weekend game against third places Elfsborg and now lie in first position, nine points clear of second place but with only two games together they are certain Swedish Champions once again.

Atletico returned to winning ways after a disappointing 3-1 loss away at Valencia before the international break by easily beating Espanyol 2-0. That defeat to Valencia on October 4th was the only defeat since the loss to Olympiakos. Simeone's side are 5th in La Liga, level on points with Valencia in fourth and only five off Barcelona in first.

Malmo have already won the Swedish title and Arda Turan knows that he and his team mates cannot be complacent on Wednesday night.

"We'll need to take care with Malmo – we have a lot of respect for them," he told FIFA's official website.

"At home they play very well and remember they went in 0-0 at half-time away to Juve [before going on to lose 2-0].

"This is the Champions League and if we're careless or adopt an attitude of 'we're a big team, we'll win all our games', then we'll be eliminated pretty quickly."

LAST 5 GAMES

Atletico Madrid - WLWWW

Malmo FF - LWWWW

TEAM NEWS

Diego Simeone has no suspensions for him to take account for but Tiago, who scored the only goal in Atleti's win against Juventus, may miss out after picking up a muscle injury in the second half of Atleti's 2-0 win against Espanyol on Sunday.

Mario Suarez is expected to replace the Portuguese midfielder so Atletico Madrid should line up like this:

Malmo's Filip Halander is out with a foot injury and Markus Halsti should replace him. Markus Rosenburg is the player to look out for in the largely unknown Malmo side. He scored a brace against Olympiakos and despite many remembering him for his goalless two years at West Brom, he scored 40 goals for Werder Bremen and has already scored 14 goals in his 26 games in a Malmo shirt.

The first back-to-back Swedish Champions since 2003 should line-up like this:

PREDICTION

Atletico Madrid should have enough quality to beat a Malmo side coming in off the back of a loss. The Swedish side claimed the league title earlier this month yet on paper, Atleti are ten times the side of what will be a fatigued Malmo side from the 28 league games they've played. Atleti come in off the back of a win but need to be careful of Malmo and not underestimate them, as Arda Turan said. Hareide's side proved their worth with a remarkable 2-0 win over Olympiakos and Markus Rosenburg is a huge threat for Atleti and a massive weapon for Malmo.

The Champions League always provides something special and this could be the game to provide it.

Final prediction: Atletico Madrid 3-1 Malmo