Real Madrid players take part in a training session at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev ahead of their UEFA Champions League tilt vs Shakhtar Donetsk. (Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
The La Liga fixture between Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao was postponed as the Spanish giants were set to be without a number of their players thanks to the South American World Cup qualifiers.
As a result, the first match for Los Blancos coming out of the international break is going to be in the Champions League against Shakhtar Donetsk. The Ukrainian side is a familiar opponent for Real Madrid as these two sides were drawn in the same group last season.
Carlo Ancelotti is going to be without some key players in a match that is going to be more difficult than it looks on paper.
Real Madrid coming off stunning upset loss to Sheriff
The last couple of games have been a grind as Madrid were held to a scoreless draw at home against Villarreal, lost their most recent La Liga match 2-1 to Espanyol and suffered a shock upset in the Champions League against Moldovan club Sheriff.
The defeat at Espanyol led to some Ancelotti-style criticism. Ahead of the Donetsk match, the Italian manager is hoping his players have learned from their mistakes.
“We’ve been working on the mistakes that we’ve made in previous games and the team is fully prepared to come up against a team that plays good football and will be giving their all to win the game in what’ll be a difficult game,” Ancelotti said.
“We didn’t perform well in the games just before the break and we’ve now got two important games ahead of us, with this match and the Barcelona game. In this period after the break, we’ve got to perform really well and the team is ready and motivated”.
Source: RealMadrid.com
According to Ancelotti, the players are aware of the significance of the game and how important it is to get back to winning ways.
They’ll have to do it without Eden Hazard who has been ruled out after picking up another injury.
“Hazard is tired of having these problems, he isn’t injured but he has an overload,” Ancelotti detailed in his pre-match press conference.
“Nobody is more frustrated than Hazard. I think he will be available against Barcelona or Osasuna.”
Source: Marca
Shakhtar have had Madrid’s number in recent history as they beat them on both occasions last season. Should they win again, Donetsk would become only the third team to beat Real Madrid on three consecutive occasions.
It is a scenario not out of the realm of possibility as Madrid have not looked convincing so far and were fortunate to beat Inter Milan at the San Siro. Had Inter been more clinical they could have won that game by multiple goals.
As Ancelotti said, they need to perform well to pick up a bit of confidence ahead of the “Clasico” against Barcelona. The Catalans sit only two points behind them after their 3-1 win over Valencia.
Madrid tend to step their game up in the Champions League but Shakhtar are going to go into the match with the belief they can get a positive result. Either Madrid will reverse their fortunes or head into the Clasico with the pressure of needing to turn around these negative results.
