Real Madrid examines its European desire at Anfield
The ‘red’ fiefdom will host the first chapter of the reissue of the last final between a confident white team and a livelier Liverpool
MADRID, 20 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Real Madrid visits English Liverpool this Tuesday (9:00 p.m.), in a duel corresponding to the first leg of the 2022-2023 Champions League round of 16, which they will have to face with significant casualties and which will serve to measure improvement and desire of the white team for their fetish competition against a rival who will want revenge and who clings to Anfield and the Champions League to save a disappointing season.
With the memory of the victory in the final of the last edition of the highest European club competition, the Madrid team traveled to Anfield with the aim of starting the knockout phase on the right foot and returning to Madrid with a beneficial result. The whites will hear the Champions League anthem again almost four months after the win against Celtic (5-1) and with their first major European exam of the campaign.
The current champion faces it with a little more confidence and less doubts after getting some air in the last 15 days. It seems that the defeat, as unexpected as it was painful, against Mallorca was the best touch of attention. And it is that since that ‘stumble’ at the beginning of the month, he has linked four victories with 15 goals in favor, in addition to adding two clean sheets and lifting the Club World Cup, numbers that encourage him against those of Juergen Klopp, who has also raising something the flight of a year that is being very gray after what has been lived in the previous ones.
Real Madrid seems to be beginning to resemble the one that started the season. More vertical, with a very chameleonic style and with the ability to close matches. With no margin for error in the League, Carlo Ancelotti’s team has a lot at stake in the coming weeks and Anfield kicks off a hectic schedule with a derby on Saturday and the Clásico cupbearer in the semifinals next week.
For this first duel, the Italian coach will have two capital casualties since, as already happened in Pamplona, ??he will not have either Toni Kroos, who continues with the gastroenteritis that has left him without playing since the Club World Cup, nor with Tchouameni, affected by flu.
Instead, he has the good news of the return of Karim Benzema to form a duo with Vinicius with whom he hopes to hurt a hesitant Liverpool behind. The French and the Brazilian are fixed in the eleven and now the Italian must decide how to complete the attack if with a more toned Fede Valverde again to put Ceballos in the midfield along with Camavinga and Modric and better counteract the pressure that he is under. They will submit the locals, or delay the Uruguayan where the Andalusian and put Rodrygo Goes up.
In defence, only with the loss of Ferland Mendy, most likely protecting a Courtois who was a nightmare for the ‘reds’ in Saint-Dennis, are Dani Carvajal and David Alaba on the rails, and Éder Militao and Antonio Rüdiger as central.
For their part, Liverpool are looking forward to this tie, as it may be their last bullet and the antidote to a more than disappointing season. The ‘reds’ are not at the level of last year when they only lost four games and fought until the end for the Premier and the Champions League.
However, this campaign is not turning out as expected. In the domestic championship they are already 19 points behind Arsenal and seven from the Champions League and have also already fallen in the FA Cup, while in the highest continental competition they were surpassed by the Italian Napoli in their group. But, despite all these doubts, Juergen Klopp’s men come to the duel against Real Madrid after showing signs of recovery with two consecutive wins against Everton and Newcastle.
Now, Liverpool clings to the Anfield environment, where they have only lost one of the last 23 games played at home, to try to lay the first stone for their revenge against a rival, who in addition to taking away their European glory last year and in 2018 , also eliminated him in the quarterfinals of the 2020-2021 season.
The ‘red’ team will receive the current champion with also important casualties such as Ibrahima Konaté, Luis Díaz and Thiago Alcántara, while the Uruguayan striker Darwin Núñez, ‘touched’ on the shoulder, “could” have minutes, according to Klopp, that at least he has recovered Virgil van Dijk to try to give solidity to an unreliable defense until not too long ago.
Matip would be the companion of the Dutchman in the center of the rear, with Alexander-Arnold, who will experience another beautiful night against Vinicius, and Robertson on the wings, while the promising Spaniard Bajcetic would accompany Henderson and Fabinho in the middle. Above, Salah, eager to settle scores, would command the attack together with the newcomer Gakpo and with Diogo Jota as a solution to the absence of Núñez.
This Tuesday will be the seventh duel between the two teams in the last 10 years, without a white defeat in any of the previous six. The last victory of the ‘reds’ against Real Madrid was in 2009 (4-0), with Fernando Torres in the ranks of Liverpool on the day of the famous ‘squirt’. In addition, Ancelotti has only lost two of the eleven direct confrontations, but, nevertheless, the meringues have only added one win in their last seven visits to English clubs in Europe.
LIVERPOOL: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Van Dijk, Matip, Robertson; Henderson, Fabinho, Bajcetic; Wrong, Gakpo y Núñez.
REAL MADRID: Courtois; Carvajal, Militao, Rüdiger, Alaba; Modric, Camavinga, Ceballos; Valverde, Benzema and Vinicius.
— REFEREE: Istvan Kovacs (RUM).
–ESTADIO: Anfield.
–TIME: 9:00 p.m./Movistar Champions League.
