With the fans ready to spur their team on to victory in the Spanish capital, the stage is set for Real Madrid to make an unlikely comeback
By Adrian Collins
The Santiago Bernabeu is going to be a cauldron tonight as the fans try to roar their team on to the most unlikely of comebacks against a Borussia Dortmund side who emphatically beat them last week.
Jurgen Klopp has, in the last few days, really taken the limelight away from Jose Mourinho, who normally is the man who dominates the pre-match press conferences with his bravado and showmanship, but it is Klopp who is now firmly the people’s favourite.
He has been faced with the unenviable task of having to rebuild his squad every time a season ends recently, after losing Shinji Kagawa and Nuri Sahin, and he will be forced to do it again with the loss of Mario Gotze at the conclusion of this year’s league campaign, but he handles these issues with grace and calm.
He was extremely relaxed yesterday, laughing and joking with the press, and stating that his players cannot fail because they will put everything into the game, and the result then is not important. When asked if he was worried that his players would freeze on the big occasion, he simply said “no”, but adding that they will act “with humility”.
However, Mourinho did make one interesting point in yesterday’s talk to the media when he said “if we don’t reach the final, it will be my failure”. He is known for taking the blame away from his players at key points, but this is the first time in his Real Madrid tenure that he has tried to unite the dressing room behind him by admitting his own shortcomings, and this could well serve a purpose in the short term.
He has, famously, fallen out with some of the biggest and most influential names at the club including Sergio Ramos and Spanish captain Iker Casillas, but this may in fact be a double bluff which weakens his own influence on it by being self-effacing and actually foisting the blame on the players right before he heads for the exit door at the Bernabeu at the end of the season.
Unsurprisingly the Spanish press have been looking to the great wins and comebacks of the past, including a 1979/80 win over Celtic 3-0, a 6-1 win over Anderlecht and two wins over Inter in 1984/85 and 1985/86 where they won 3-0 and 5-1 respectively.
They’re calling on the spirit of one of their legendary players, Juanito, who led many a comeback in his time, to remind the players of what it means to pull on the white shirt and they’ve even gone so far as to make a video to whip the fans into a frenzy for tonight’s game.
For some reason, and call us crazy if you want, but there seems to be something of an air about this Madrid time right now, in this particular moment, that makes us believe that this is possible. That said, it would be incredibly foolish to underestimate Dortmund after last week, but perhaps Madrid have learned their lesson in that respect.
