REAL MADRID
Why aren’t Real Madrid being taken more seriously in England?
Despite their stellar record against Premier League opposition in European soccer, Real Madrid are repeatedly taken too lightly by English clubs and pundits.
Real Madrid are not being taken seriously in England. Los Blancos have knocked out Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool (twice) in consecutive Champions League knockout ties - including a 1-0 victory over the Merseysiders in last season’s final in Paris - but few lessons seem to have been learned.
Lampard makes puzzling Real Madrid admission
Wednesday’s first leg between Madrid and Chelsea, in which Carlo Ancelotti’s men were 2-0 winners, saw the reigning European champions again underestimated. Pre-match, the Premier League club’s billionaire American owner, Todd Boehly, predicted a 3-0 win for the visitors at the Bernabéu. After the Champions League quarter-final clash, Chelsea’s interim boss Frank Lampard - the club’s third head coach this season - admitted that the West Londoners hadn’t realised Madrid “were that good”.
Also the owner of MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers, Boehly seems to be far better versed about baseball than soccer. But Lampard’s words are striking in the extreme. Not least because of the fact that, of the 15 Madrid players who featured against Chelsea this midweek, all except Antonio Rüdiger and Aurélien Tchouaméni were already at the club less than a year ago - when the 14-time continental kings dumped the English side out of the Champions League last eight.
“Liverpool are still the best team in Europe”
It’s not just Chelsea who aren’t giving Madrid the recognition they deserve. They’re also at it in the red half of Liverpool. After last season’s Champions League final - despite watching Los Merengues complete one of the most unforgettable runs to European Cup glory in the competition’s history - former Reds striker Michael Owen came up with analysis that caused widespread bewilderment. “Liverpool are still the best team in Europe,” Owen insisted on UK broadcaster BT Sport.
After this season’s last-16 first leg at Anfield, Liverpool head coach Jürgen Klopp also raised more than a few eyebrows when he expressed his surprise at the excellent defensive display put in by Nacho (a player with five Champions League winners’ medals).
Alongside Lampard and Owen, Jamie Carragher and Thierry Henry are two further Premier League legends who are seemingly not immune to taking Madrid a little too lightly, either. Asked by US network CBS to predict their tie winners all the way to June’s Champions League final in Istanbul, Carragher and Henry both picked Manchester City to beat Madrid in the semi-finals.
Real Madrid’s dominant record against English clubs
This all comes despite Madrid having progressed 12 times out of 18 in two-legged European knockout ties against English opposition; in other words, the Spaniards have won out on twice as many occasions as they have been eliminated. Moreover, Madrid have won eight of their last 10 games against Premier League clubs.