Simeone raises the white flag in the La Liga race

Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone expressed his deep regret after his team's shock 1-0 defeat to Las Palmas in Saturday's La Liga match, considering that his team's already weak hopes of winning the title had suffered a "fatal blow". Atletico Madrid remains in third place with 63 points, 10 points behind leaders Barcelona and 3 points behind second-place Real Madrid, who face Athletic Bilbao on Sunday. "If we wanted to compete for the league title, we had to achieve perfect results from now until the end," Simeone said after the match. He added, "We performed relatively well in the first half, but ineffectively. In the second half, the team was lackluster, and we failed to impose our style or achieve what we had hoped for." The Argentine coach rejected accusations that his players were lacking in morale, stressing that the problem was not with enthusiasm or fighting spirit, but rather with technical performance.