Leicester opened its first Champions League campaign with a comfortable 3-0 victory at Belgian champion Club Brugge on Wednesday, with Riyad Mahrez scoring twice.
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The Leicester fairytale continued as they enjoyed the best possible introduction to Champions League football with a 3-0 victory over Club Brugge at the Jan Breydel stadium on Wednesday night.
Marc Albrighton netted the Foxes’ first-ever Champions League goal, and first in Europe since 2000, before Riyad Mahrez crashed in a brilliant free-kick.
But the Foxes have lost two of their four games in the league, including last week’s 4-1 defeat at Liverpool, as their title defence gets off to a slow start and Ranieri said if they lose focus against the Clarets he would sound the alarm. “I said we can not think about the Champions League, it’s an experience for us and we hope to go through the group and play again”.
“I don’t know if Slimaini is ready for 90 minutes but it’s important for him to understand the spirit of the Premier League”, Ranieri said during his pre-match press conference on Friday. The number of matches they had could not have hurt them, as it gave most of the players ample time to rest injuries and overall fatigue.
“It is a big test against everybody because with Rostov we are the only two teams who had never played in the Champions League and for us it is hard to play against teams who have very good experience, like Brugge, Copenhagen and Porto”, added Ranieri.
“If teams look at us and maybe think we’re a weaker team than what they could have got I don’t think that’ll be wise”. “He took the responsibility”.
“The Champions League music woke him up”, Ranieri said. I think our fans are very happy. “It is history because the first match we won away”.
“It’s massive. I’m not going to play it down because it’s probably one of the biggest achievements of my career so far”.
A superpower ” We played our style. Clear your mind, because in the next match the opponent wants to beat us.
“If he hadn’t scored I’d take his neck and crush his neck”.
Diaby clipped the post as powderpuff Brugge tried to find a way back but Leicester even had the luxury of giving Vardy, Mahrez and Slimani a rest as Ahmed Musa, Leonardo Ulloa and Demarai Gray replaced them. Once the Foxes scored their second goal, the Burnley striker was a mere spectator as the hosts showed why they were last season’s champions.
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With Porto and Copenhagen playing out a 1-1 draw, the group sets up nicely for Leicester to reach the knockout stages.
