Zinedine Zidane spoke at press conference the day before El Clásico. After knocking Bayern Munich out in the Champions League Quarters Finals, Los Blancos want to close the week winning their major opponent with the goal of increasing the gap to six points.
The French manager started the press conference talking about how to prepare El Clásico, one of the most important sport events in the world:” We know it’s a very important clash. We are a bit tired but there is a lot of hope in what we are doing. If we finally win El Clásico there will still be seven remaining games to play”, Zidane said about El Clásico.
Zidane wanted to affirm that they are not favourites to win El Clásico, despite knocking Bayern Munich out this week, one of the most powerful squads in all Europe:” Maybe the people think that we are going to win this game because we won Bayern Munich, and that’s not true. We are very focused in this match, without thinking in what have done. We are not favourites because it’s a game that you must fight until the end if you want to achieve the victory.
This will be the first Clásico of Zidane at Santiago Bernabéu and he seemed quite proud of it:” Of course it’s special. It’s a very important game and we are ready to play it. We are going to play in our stadium and with the support of our fans and with the work of the team we will try to achieve the three points”, Zidane said.
The journalists didn’t doubt about asking the great performance of Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo in the last game against Bayern Munich:” Marcelo is a very complete player with a lot of character. He is a great teammate because he is always joking. What can I say about Cristiano. He is physically and mentally prepared to play another good match. We always talk about Cristiano in the important clashes, and he showed his quality on Tuesday. He is an incredible player who transmits a lot of positive energy to the group”, Zidane explained Cristiano and Marcelo’s importance in the the group.
The journalists asked the French manager if Gareth Bale will be in tomorrow the starting 11 or on the bench and he didn’t’ want to give any clue about his line-up:” “He’s going to be with us tomorrow. You will see the team tomorrow”, Zidane affirmed.
