Zinedine Zidane admitted Real Madrid
suffered an El Clasico hangover as they crashed to a 2-0 Champions
League quarter-final, first leg, defeat at Wolfsburg on Wednesday, AFP
reports.
Just five days after ending Barcelona’s
39-game unbeaten run with a 2-1 away win, Real were humbled as Wolfsburg
ignored their struggling mid-table form in Germany’s top flight.
Real never recovered as first-half goals
from Swiss defender Ricardo Rodriguez and Maximilian Arnold put the
hosts 2-0 up at the Volkswagen Arena with 25 minutes gone.
Wolfsburg now have the upper hand ahead of Tuesday’s return leg at the Bernabeu.
“I’m not happy, above all with the
first-half. This can happen if you don’t play with intensity from the
start,” said coach Zidane, who made just one change from the team which
beat Barca.
“We wanted to play here just like we did
on Saturday, it was an intensive game for us (in Barcelona) and we were
flat in the first-half here.
“Now we have a chance in the return leg and it’s good we’ve got a game in three days (at home to Eibar) to get over this defeat.
“We had our problems, not just in the intensity, but also in our movement.
“We didn’t expect the 2-0 defeat and we need to analyse where we went wrong and make corrections.”
Zidane even said he was proud of his players and took full responsibility for the result.
“I have to find the reasons for the defeat and the solutions,” he added.
Real’s six-game winning streak was ended
as Wolfsburg picked up their first win in four games since beating Gent
in the last 16 of the tournament.
It was a poor performance from Real’s
star forwards as Gareth Bale was kept quiet and Cristiano Ronaldo rarely
shook of his markers.
France forward Karim Benzema went off on 41 minutes after a knock.
Bale was left frustrated at not being awarded a first-half penalty after a heavy challenge in the area from Luiz Gustavo.
“I felt I got to the ball first and he hit me, so it is obviously frustrating, but we have another game,” said the Welshman.”
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