Ancelotti enjoys Madrid approach
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
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While Carlo Ancelotti was "satisfied with the score and the attitude" of Real Madrid CF, Jürgen Klopp admitted Borussia Dortmund had made it too easy for the hosts.
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Carlo Ancelotti, Madrid coach
I'm satisfied with the score and the attitude of the team. It wasn't an easy game but we started well. Then we slowed down and Dortmund are a very dangerous team on the break. Now we have to play in Dortmund. They use dangerous and quick counterattacks but our defence was good tonight. We also pushed up to avoid their long passes.
Isco played well, also defensively. He has a lot of quality. He is not used to playing in that position. [Cristiano] Ronaldo had a knee problem but I took him off to avoid any risks. He is not injured, just a minor annoyance.
To win the tenth (European Cup)? Every day we think of it, even more when we have this kind of matches. This competition motivates us much. We reacted after two games in which we didn't play very well, but the team reacted well. We dream of playing in the final, but that's still three games away. This result suggests a straightforward second leg but we must be careful of Dortmund.
Jürgen Klopp, Dortmund coach
We practically assisted two of their goals ourselves. You can concede the first goal, that was a well-executed attack, but we made it too easy for their second and third goals. We didn't defend the way we wanted, we left too much room and weren't as compact as I would have liked. But we also have to understand that we played one of the best teams in the world today.
We had a lot of chances to score and pushed forward until the final whistle. It definitely would have helped for the return leg. We've certainly been in better positions than being 3-0 down. A 2-0 victory in front of our home crowd is always a possibility, but that won't be enough now since we didn't score.
We lacked the final touch in our attacks. We had a lot of counterattacks where we either missed the opportunity or the final ball was inaccurate. So if we are eliminated next week, it won't just be because of our defensive showing tonight.
I'm not going to make any type of promises for the return leg, but we want to play attractive football and win the game if possible. And if we do manage to win, we will just have to wait and see by what margin. But I'm not going to stand here and say, "We'll blow them away."