Real Madrid coach Ancelotti confident of players' focus against Liverpool

Football
15 Mar 2023 • 8:37 AM MYT
Tribal Football
Tribal Football

Tribal Football covers news from the Premier League, LaLiga and Serie A

image is not available

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti is confident his players will be switched-on against Liverpool.

Real host the Reds for the second-leg of their Champions League round 16 tie defending a 5-2 aggregate lead.

Ancelotti said, "The message is quite simple, it's very clear. It's not about calculating how many goals might be needed. We have to play to the best of our abilities and try to put in a similar performance to the one we put in during the first leg. We'll be trying to enter the game from kick-off, playing with intensity and desire to win the game.

We haven't really spoken about that (a gameplan), only the good things and the bad things we did in the first leg. I think we did a lot of things well - especially in attack. We have to do the same tomorrow. We're not going to worry about how many goals are needed - even if we have an advantage.

"We'll be playing an open game, with the idea of taking the game to Liverpool and playing our best attacking football. The players understand that perfectly. I think it will be an open game because Liverpool will be trying to turn the tie around - which is to be expected. We will have to defend well and attack well but we are not thinking about just sitting back and defending."

He added, What happened in last year's game against Chelsea is very much still in our minds. It will help us to plan this game differently. That's why I think it's important what I said earlier - we will be trying not to make any calculations. We want to repeat our performance in the first leg."