Real Madrid head coach, Carlo Ancelotti, acknowledged that his team’s chances of reaching the Champions League semifinals were slim after suffering a shocking 3-0 defeat to Arsenal on Tuesday.
However, he also emphasized that the reigning champions could still pull off something special in the return leg at home.
Declan Rice scored two brilliant free kicks, and Mikel Merino added a smooth finish, leaving the 15-time European champions with a tough task ahead in Madrid next week.
What was even more worrying than the scoreline was Real’s lackluster performance, with the team failing to create many attacking opportunities and showing defensive disarray.
Despite this, they have found ways to secure results at times during this season.
“Normally this team raises their game towards the end of matches,” Ancelotti reflected. “It was disappointing, it was poor. We have to be critical of ourselves here and do everything we can next week to recover.”
The Italian manager was clear that his side needed a significant improvement to have any hope, even though he noted that “we were not bad throughout large stretches of the game.”
Real Madrid, however, have a strong history of staging dramatic comebacks, especially at the Santiago Bernabeu, and they have previously overturned a three-goal first-leg deficit, though that happened almost half a century ago against Derby County in the European Cup.
Ancelotti seemed to have little belief in his team’s chances for a turnaround in the second leg but cautioned Arsenal that the tie was far from over.
“The possibilities (of qualifying) are quite low, but we have to try 100 per cent,” he stated. “We have to do all we can, it’s an opportunity to show a response to a poor game.”
He also added, “If you look at the game tonight, there is no possibility. But football changes. Nobody expected that Rice would score two goals from set pieces.”
“In football, everything can happen. We need to believe, we need to have trust because, sometimes, a lot of time in the Bernabeu, it happened.”
