Today, Real Madrid is looking for a place in the semifinals of the Champions League, for the third consecutive season, in a new setting. For the first time in these three years, Carlo Ancelotti's team seeks to defend a favorable result from the Bernabéu away from home, this time at a Stamford Bridge where Chelsea is playing its last trick to fix a campaign that is far from their expectations, with three coaches in the last two weeks.
Rarely has Real Madrid been such a favourite. He brings a good result, the 2-0 first leg at the Bernabéu, in which he overwhelmed a Chelsea, whom he was able to thrash. In addition, the English team has three consecutive defeats and in their last five games they have only managed a draw and scored one goal.
Chelsea have undoubtedly been the great disappointment of this Premier, in which they are eleventh, with hardly any options for European qualification for next season; all the more embarrassing when the 'blues' spent almost 700 million euros on transfers since last summer; 300 million in this winter market to form a squad that has become more of a good collection of trading cards than a true team.
For Madrid, the question tonight in London is to figure out how to handle the game: if it is convenient for them to compromise with the result and go against it to give the opponent the coup de grace or if, on the contrary, they prefer to go and win from the beginning, what he did in the previous tie against Liverpool despite bringing a 2-5 first leg at Anfield.
But the difference now is in the field factor. Madrid consummated their comebacks from last season by always playing the second leg in the heat of the Bernabéu. This is how they came back against PSG, Manchester City and Chelsea himself in the quarterfinals, as now. The precedent of the tie against Chelsea may be misleading because it occurred in circumstances that are already impossible to repeat. Madrid won the first leg at Stamford Bridge (1-3), with a hat trick from Benzema, but then they were on the ropes at the Bernabéu, where the team then led by Thomas Tuchel came to be 0-3 in favor on the scoreboard . Madrid reached extra time thanks to a goal from Rodrygo in the last minutes and they sealed it in extra time with a goal from Benzema.
In the press conference prior to the game, Ancelotti assured that his team will go out to win so as not to complicate themselves, since he does not expect an easy game at all. Madrid reserved players as important as Vinícius, Kroos or Luka Modric on Saturday in Cádiz. All of them will be headlines today. What is expected is to repeat the team that won in the first leg, which is the one that thrashed Barcelona at the Camp Nou in the Cup.
Frank Lampard, the Chelsea coach, wanted to send a message of calm and optimism: “Everything is possible in football and more if we work hard. I don't know the history of Madrid from the inside, but what I see from the outside is that they have a great coach and players who have been together for many years. They have talent, work ethic and confidence which is a recipe for success. But Chelsea have already come back on several occasions and I do my job, ”he said.
Kepa, Chelsea's Basque goalkeeper, also spoke: “We can do it, but we need to be more forceful in both areas. It is the way".
