Ancelotti content with “well-rounded” win over Chelsea
Real Madrid beat Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals 2-0, but coach Carlo Ancelotti knows there’s still a fight to be had.
Carlo Ancelotti coached Real Madrid to a 2-0 victory over Chelsea yesterday in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. It was his 35th Championship League win (in 47 games) with Los Blancos. Karim Benzema opened the scoring with a goal in the 22nd minute and Marco Asensio sealed the deal with the second in the 74th. When Madrid scores first, under Ancelotti, they tend to win. In fact, they have won 30 out of 31 Champions League games under Ancelotti when scoring first.
Ancelotti warns squad to be ready to “fight and sacrifice”
It wasn’t an “easy win” for Real Madrid, who fought hard on offense and defense on Wednesday, “suffering” against a tough Chelsea team.
“We played a very well-rounded game,” said Ancelotti. “We suffered somewhat at the beginning but the objective was to get ahead and that’s what we did.”
A 2-0 finish is a good start, but it’s just the first leg. There is still a second leg to get through at Stamford Bridge next Tuesday.
“We won 2-0, we took advantage of this game, but it’s not done yet,” said Ancelotti. “Chelsea is a good team with good players, and we have to fight and sacrifice at Stamford Bridge. This is absolutely normal - it’s a quarter-final of the Champions League.”
Madrid had a chance to get ahead by more on Wednesday, when Chelsea was reduced to 10 players, but Luka Modric missed an opportunity. Ancelotti did not see that as a failure, however, and praised the team for the win.
“You might think we could have pressed more against 10 men, but when it was 11 v 11, we spent a lot of energy in the game trying to press high, and so at the end, we were not so fresh to try to find another goal, but the result and the performance was good,” he said.
Ancelotti praised Federico Valverde as “the best player on the field.”
“He brought so much energy and he was very aware of his positioning. He managed the defensive side of things with [Toni] Kroos really well and was brilliant at recovering the ball after the opening 10 minutes, when we made a few slight adjustments,” said Ancelotti.
Real Madrid will face Chelsea in the second leg of the quarterfinals on Tuesday, April 18 at 3 p.m. ET at Stamford Bridge. They look to advance to the semifinals for the third season in a row.