Carlo Ancelotti revealed his side adopted a tactic to beat Chelsea in the Champions League, a tactic more tied to the Sunday League than to Europe's top league.
It wasn't exactly the toughest encounter in their favorite league that Real Madrid have ever faced, as they faced Chelsea in the quarter-finals.
In their fourth straight knockout round, they beat their English opponent, helped by Wesley Fofana who was too busy reading notes to defend in the first leg.
Things didn't get any better for Frank Lampard's side in the second game either, and even before the game started, things didn't look good as the club forgot to play the league anthem.
A lousy defense saw the West Londoners lose their second game, at Stamford Bridge, with the same 2-0 scoreline as their first win. It's not even a classic performance by the Spanish giants, who are trying to bring the total number of European titles to 15 this season.
They don't need to go much further than second gear and are quite sloppy at times, but are still within arm's reach of Lampard's men.
And Ancelotti has now admitted that they coached Fede Valverde to shoot from the start, which you usually see at home on Sundays.
"We've seen in recent games that Kepa has taken the early game on penalties," the former Blues manager told MARCA of the tactic.
“We thought with a long shot from Valverde we could score. "We tried to work more on set pieces, less defensively because we defended in the area."
Valverde sat in his pocket ready to fire. Image:
Sun
In the end, Valverde didn't really try to shoot from long distance, perhaps deciding that Kepa wasn't far enough from his touchline to shoot.
But that doesn't matter as Los Blancos advance to the semi-finals, where they will meet Manchester City, for the second year in a row at this stage.
Any club that makes it to the final will be favorites, with the Milan derby on the other side of the draw, but fans will not be satisfied with how much they will have to pay.
Once again, fans were ripped off with just 20,000 tickets per club and they would have to shell out over €690 for the privilege of watching their team.
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