REAL MADRID
Ceballos on preseason: "We are adapting to Lopetegui's ideas"
Dani Ceballos has been handed a lifeline at Real Madrid and he is excited to continue working at the club where he is training under Julen Lopetegui during preseason.
Dani Ceballos has started preseason training with Real Madrid with the same gusto as he started last season, his first in the Spanish capital. The 21-year-old finished last season with doubts over his future given the limited time Zinedine Zidane gave him but he knows that Julen Lopetegui is relying on him as part of his squad next season. The new Real Madrid manager has told the club that he wants to keep both Ceballos and Marcos Llorente, who had previously decided he was leaving this summer.
"It has been a year since I joined Real Madrid and I keep working with the same desire I had on the first day. It has been a year full of titles and we hope that this year can be the same or better," Ceballos told Real Madrid's official website.
Ceballos acknowledges how difficult the opening few days of training under a new coach can be. "These initialy sessions of preseason are really hard. We are adapting to the manager's directions and getting up to speed to feel good going into games. In the initial sessions, we have to stress what the manager wants, assessing what he wants for the team and taking his ideas on board in order to apply them on the field," he said.
Real Madrid's first game comes on August 1st at 02:00 CEST against Manchester United at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. The game is part of the International Champions Cup and Real Madrid will also face Juventus sans Ronaldo, however, on the 5th of August at 00:00 CEST. They will play Roma on the 8th at 02:00 CEST. The first game marked in red, however, is the game against Atlético madrid in Tallin, Estonia, in the European Super Cup as the Madrid rivals aim to win their first piece of silverware of the season. "Before this game, we will play other important games that you have to face in the best way possible in order to feel good and to lift the first title of the season," Ceballos added.
