Real Madrid Coach Zinedine Zidane warns their Champions League tie with Juventus isn’t over – “great teams never give up”.
The Spanish champions hold a 3-0 lead from the first leg in Turin, but the Frenchman is warning against any complacency tomorrow night.
“It’s not going to change anything for us,” said Zidane in his pre-match Press conference.
“We know it’s a different match, what happened [in the first leg] happened. We had a good match and a good result, but 50 per cent of the qualification comes down to tomorrow so what we need to do is have another great match.
“What I want is to prove it on the pitch and not talk, because we know that in football we have to respect all teams and that will always be the case.
“For instance, in the match against Atletico Madrid we could even have lost. That’s football, one single play can undo you.
“We have to respect the opponent, because great teams never give up. If we’re there from minute one to minute 90 then we have a great chance of going through, but we have to prove it on the pitch.
“We have to take it game-by-game, as we always do.”
Barcelona are out of sight in La Liga, so with tomorrow’s match is it four finals in the Champions League?
“We have one, which is tomorrow’s match. Then we’ll see, because we have the Liga, we have to finish the Liga and do well.
“The other day I was saying that we have to fight for the top spot but we’re fourth. The goal for us is to finish in the best possible position in the Liga.
“We have tomorrow’s final, which is one, then if we go through we’ll see who the other team is but we can’t think further ahead than tomorrow’s match.
“A final with Barcelona? What I’m interested in is tomorrow’s match. To think about ourselves and what we need to do, to try and play a great match so we qualify.”
Sergio Ramos is suspended and Jesus Vallejo may not be fit, so could Casemiro play in defence?
“We had a good training session with Jesus too, and he didn’t seem to have any problems,” Zidane revealed.
“We’ll see and you’ll see who starts tomorrow but we have no problems and if there is a problem we’ll adapt to the situation. Right now everything is fine.”
Tomorrow could be Gianluigi Buffon’s last-ever Champions League match…
“We’re not thinking about that. Buffon has won a lot, he’s done a lot of things. I know him a bit as a person, he’s a great guy and a great player but we’re going to think about tomorrow’s match and what we want to do is win and eliminate Juventus.
“I don’t know what will happen with Gigi, but for what he’s done and what he is he’s a great player and a great person.”
A journalist from the Corriere della Sera then asked about the gulf between Serie A and La Liga. Is the Italian league bad, or the Spanish one good?
“I don’t think that Italian football is weak. The Liga is very good, it’s a really high level.”
