After CL promotion

“Lousy soccer!” Press dissects Real Madrid

Real star Toni Kroos

(Bild: Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Real Madrid advance to the quarter-finals of the Champions League with an arduous draw against RB Leipzig. The Spanish press condemned the way the Whites played and spoke of "lousy soccer". Here are the press comments:

MARCA (Spain): "Bellingham and Vinícius avoid disaster. Tradition has it that Real Madrid are bad at managing a lead in knockout matches, living off ecstasies and epics. In their attempt to overturn the 1-0 deficit from the first leg, they were at the mercy of a German side who were punished for their lack of precision. Lousy soccer that was not befitting of a Champions League contender."

AS (Spain): "A game with fire. Ancelotti's team are going into the quarter-finals with bad feelings and a lot of suffering. The team was tense, unresponsive, the Bernabéu terrified - by what it saw and by what it sensed might be to come. The darkest part of Madrid's brilliant European Cup career often had to do with Germany, with that Teutonic ability to complicate everything, to be unafraid of legends, to be unimpressive to opponents and atmosphere, to go into a trance in games and become unstoppable. The game was what explained the Real line-up: a team that hid behind the result in Germany, slowed down the tempo of the game and was ultra-conservative."

EL MUNDO (Spain): "Madrid almost burn themselves against Leipzig and advance to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Slow, predictable and imprecise. Once again, it seemed as if Real Madrid had to be half-dead on the brink of the European Champions Cup to really wake up. Dangerous and somewhat embarrassing, hence the loud whistles in the Bernabéu at half-time."

SPORT (Spain): "It wasn't one of those glamorous evenings at the Bernabéu. It was an evening full of tension, where Ancelotti didn't find the right attitude and his players lacked the necessary energy. But on the road to the final, there are also dark days when you have to grit your teeth and wait for the final whistle. A game on a knife-edge, in which Madrid felt dominated and disoriented, but in which their opponents spared them time and time again. Real Madrid have progressed to the quarter-finals with a 1-1 draw-and that's the best news for the Blancos on a night when their fans were whistling."

MUNDO DEPORTIVO (Spain): "Madrid advance to the quarter-finals amid whistles against Leipzig. No one in Ancelotti's team moved between the lines, with the exception of Bellingham, and that made their play slow and predictable. Leipzig weren't the eighth wonder of the world either, but at least they had more will, more attitude. Real Madrid thought the first leg had ended 6-0 or something similar."

L'Équipe (France): "Real Madrid give themselves a scare against Leipzig, but reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League. It's a trademark, a signature, as if the tension and weight of the competition had no effect on their shoulders. Real Madrid are specialists in painful qualifiers and proved it again on Wednesday, as if it was intentional. Carlo Ancelotti's side, who had won the first leg 1-0, started with a glut of regular midfielders and just one striker - and it showed for a long time: little intent, not a shot on goal in the first half, a limpness rarely seen."

Tuttosport (Italy): "After the draw at home to Leipzig, Real Madrid were booed at the Bernabéu: Ancelotti's team suffered throughout the 90 minutes at the hands of the Germans, who had few chances to score."