Real Madrid’s Champions League season continued with a draw against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday.
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Real’s Gareth Bale played down the effect of Cristiano Ronaldo’s injury and expressed confidence for the home leg.
“It’s a solid start to set up the second leg”, said Hart, who pulled off a fine save with his foot to deny Casemiro and then hurled himself in front of Pepe’s point-blank effort.
“Ronaldo is very important for us because he’s decisive and he scores goals”. Even though his manager Zinedine Zidane had assured us all that Ronaldo was “100 percent” recovered from the injury that had kept him out of the weekend’s 3-2 comeback win overRayo Vallecano, he didn’t even dress for the game.
City, appearing in their first semi-final, did not work visiting goalkeeper Keylor Navas until Kevin de Bruyne hit the target with a stoppage-time free-kick, but Pellegrini said that his side would show a greater cutting edge in next week’s return leg in Madrid.
“We’ve set it up for a good, old-fashioned rumble at the Bernabeu”, said the England global. In terms of intent, we had the most intent. “We’ll take it day-by- day and look at it with the doctors”.
The visitors had the better opportunities in a tight contest on Tuesday night, with Jese and Pepe both going close to breaking the deadlock in the second half.
“We’ve had results playing away against PSG, Dynamo Kiev and Sevilla, so we are not afraid to go to the Bernabeu and we will see which team will play better in that game”. This minor disadvantage will be exacerbated when they go to the Bernabeau with the probable return of Ronaldo and Benzema. The issue with Karim was a bit different, but it was gradually getting worse and we didn’t want to risk him.
“We were trying to attack but it you keep giving the ball away Madrid will grow in confidence”. As I said before the game, we have the same option as Real Madrid.
“We expect a hard game, we know that Bayern are a strong team with unbelievable players like (Thomas) Mueller or (Robert) Lewandowski, so I hope we play well in defence, stop them and score a goal.
I’d also like to thank all the Real Madrid fans who have travelled to support the side”.
City will be without David Silva for the second leg after he came off with a hamstring injury.
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City held on to give themselves a fighting chance heading into next week’s second leg at the Bernabeu although the watching Ronaldo, who unexpectedly failed a fitness test, will hope to feature. “It was definitely a foul but what can you do?” added the Welshman.
