Spaniard Josep Guardiola is counting on his good performance at the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid when he arrives on Wednesday with his Manchester City team as Real Madrid’s guest in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final after a beautiful and breathtaking match. match of the first round, which was decided by the champion and leader of the English Premier League with a score of 4:3.
Guardiola urged his players to show their “character” to take another victory in the royal team’s stronghold, similar to the 2020 round of 16 (2-1) on his way to destroy the Spanish giant.
Despite the prestige of the ancient stadium and Real Madrid’s success at home, which led to him winning the first continental title 13 times (a record), Guardiola managed to win 6 times in Madrid with an orphan defeat in his nine visits to City, ” Barcelona. and Bavaria.
In addition, Real Madrid, with their veteran French top scorer Karim Benzema, who is enjoying the most beautiful days of his career, has made two great comebacks at the Bernabeu against Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea in the previous two rounds.
The qualifiers of this confrontation will meet in the final with Liverpool, who exited the confrontation with the Spanish Villarreal yesterday, having won on aggregate with a score of 5:2.
On the other hand, Ancelotti is trying to refocus his players on the Champions League after beating Espanyol 4-0 to win his 35th League title, so that the team’s fans can celebrate, as is traditionally done at the famous Cibeles Square.
“This is the most important game of the season,” Modric said of today’s match. The atmosphere in the dressing room is very good. We are looking forward to the confrontation. We know what we have to do, we have to play our best games.”
“We have a lot of confidence in the fight to come back,” he added. We know that in the first match we did not perform well, but we scored three goals. We need to do better at home and I’m sure we will. We have the quality and the character for this… along with the history of this club.”
Modric, 36, who has won the Champions League four times with Real Madrid, said: “It’s been four years since our last Champions League win, but this is another match. We’ll take the field with a lot of confidence and personality, a lot of energy and enthusiasm. We have to show that we are Real Madrid, the best team in the world. We have to get the fans involved from the very beginning by putting on a good show.”
Despite some criticism of the over-celebration between the two game-changing fixtures against City, the veteran manager felt it brought positivity and energy and helped his team move towards their record-breaking quest for a 14th title. “Celebrating is good from a psychological point of view. We are professionals, today we will celebrate together, tomorrow we will train, and on Wednesday we will play another important game.
Ancelotti came on for Benzema against Espanyol but scored after coming on as a 60th-minute substitute to take him to 18 goals in his last 13 games in an impressive streak that included two hat-tricks against St. Germain and Chelsea and doubles against Mallorca, Celta Vigo and City.
Despite their long history, the royal team has managed only three Champions League and La Liga doubles in 1957 and 1958, and under French Zinedine Zidane in 2017.