Real Madrid seek Euro tonic to terrible season
AFP, MADRID
AFP, MADRID: Real Madrid return to Champions League action with the visit of Roma on Tuesday needing to book their place in their quarter-finals to keep alive a hugely disappointing season.
A place in the last eight for a sixth consecutive season is well within the reach of Zinedine Zidanes men with a comfortable 2-0 first-leg lead to rely on.
Yet, Madrid will have memories of this stage of the competition 12 months ago when Schalke had the 10-time champions clinging on in the final stages as the Germans won 4-3 at the Bernabeu.
Reals home form this season has shown in equal measure the talent and frailties prevalent in their star-studded squad.
Madrids forlorn challenge for the Spanish title owes much to defeats to rivals Barcelona and Atletico Madrid at the Bernabeu.
Yet, they have won 15 and drawn one of their other 16 home games, scoring 69 goals in the process.
Trailing Barca by 12 points with just 10 Liga games to play and having been turfed out of the Copa del Rey after just one game for fielding an ineligible player, Madrids sole focus has turned to winning an 11th European Cup.
And not without reason. On the last seven times Madrid were crowned kings of Europe they failed to win the league domestically.
We are still in the Champions League. It is a competition we aspire to win and it is not a coincidence that Real Madrid is the team that have won the most European Cups, said Cristiano Ronaldo.
Nothing is lost and we are going to continue working to achieve great things at the end of the season.
Whether Madrid can achieve great things in the Champions League come Milan on May 28 will depend much on Ronaldo and could play a major role in the three-time World Player of the Years future at the club.
Ronaldos outburst that Real would be top of the league if his teammates matched his standards didnt sit well in the Madrid dressing room or in the stands.
Indeed, the Portuguese was even jeered by sections of the Real support before firing four goals in 28 minutes during Saturdays 7-1 thrashing of Celta Vigo.
