Ancelotti: “If we want to complete the comeback, nobody is allowed to mess up”

Real Madrid have it all to do to keep their season alive, and Carlo Ancelotti knows it. He also knows that only at Real Madrid would we still be saying they’ve got something in it, as with any other team, a normal football outcome would be the only way to go.

But not in the Spanish capital, just to the right of the final roundabout on the Paseo de la Castellana before you get to the Cuzco metro station. The Santiago Bernabéu, the black hole event horizon of football: where time and space flip positions and the singularity, an endlessly infinitely small point of whatever’s left is all that exists. Football isn’t football here, it’s something science can’t describe, that precipice of human exploration and knowledge that was once the Artic, then the Moon, now the Bernabéu. One of the remaining ‘we don’t know how to explain it’ things that the universe coughs up and we just have to accept.

Ancelotti explained why weird things happen there in the following way: “Because Real Madrid has all the resources to come back: quality, commitment, experience, fans - the resources are there. The only thing we have to do is that, on an individual level, each player then brings out their best version of themselves. But in past years they also said that we didn’t play spectacular football. And that may be true. But, more than spectacular, what Real Madrid wants is to play effective football.”

‘It will be important to keep a cool head to control the match’

The fans play their part. Around 85,000 screaming voices waiting for that moment when - not if - it comes. That first goal. The first ‘vamos!’ where people actually believe. Ancelotti said that “obviously” they will have a part to play, adding that tomorrow we need a match at our highest level, because only with it we can turn around a tie that, as of today, is very complicated. But we want to change this thinking, like playing a serious game with our head, heart... with cojones."

“The team is excited, motivated”, he added. “In terms of commitment, mentally, we are very good. Let’s not forget that it will be important to keep a cool head, because we will have to control the match.”

While the manager said that he doesn’t have anything special up his sleeve in terms of tactics, he does want one word: “intensity”. It’s something Ancelotti has talked about on various occasions throughout the season, as well as “control”, which was also highlighted.

Clarity is also a theme for the coach: “I just want to explain the strategy clearly. We have thought a lot about this match and we continue to do so. I want the players to go on the field with a very clear idea. My time will be used simply to explain clearly what the strategy will be. If a player is clear, he is able to give a better individual performance.

While scoring first may not be key for Carlo, he did admit that Madrid “need a bit of everything” on the night: “a good combination of the enormous quality of these players and the collective attitude. If we want to complete a comeback, nobody is allowed to mess up.”

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“There won’t be any magic, magic doesn’t exist”, Ancelotti said. While he may be right and everything can ultimately be explained by science, until that point we may well just have to write it down as mystical Bernabéu happenings with no explanation.

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