Emilio Butragueño reacts to Real Madrid drawing Man City
The club's director of Institutional Relations is taking nothing for granted ahead of Los Blancos' semi-final tie against the fourth-placed Premier League outfit.
Real Madrid’s Director of Institutional Relations, Emilio Butragueño, was quick to react after today’s Champions League draw in Nyon. The one-time lynchpin of the 'merengue' forward line spoke in glowing terms about the club’s upcoming opponents, Manchester City: “It will be a very tight tie; both teams possess top-quality players. They’re a very dangerous side. They’re through to the semi-finals for the first time and they’ll be extremely pumped up. We’ll need to put in two strong performances if we’re to make it to Milan. Two lapses of concentration resulted in two goals in Germany [against Wolfsburg]. We can’t afford another slip up like that against a team like Man City”.
Good fortune: “After last year’s draw, everyone was saying we were lucky to have drawn Juventus and they went on to knock us out. All the teams are very strong at this stage competition. We need our players to be at very their best”.
Txiki Begiristain comments about Madrid being favourites: “Txiki is a smart man. We both know that this will be a very evenly-matched tie. Playing the second leg at the Bernabéu should give us a bit of an advantage. This is our sixth straight semi-final. We played three of those six we played the return leg at home and failed to reach the final. So we need to be careful. It’s going to be a very tricky task”.