Berliner Boersenzeitung - Future on hold as Real Madrid await PSG Champions League blockbuster

EUR -
AED 4.293301
AFN 80.91469
ALL 97.787327
AMD 448.804147
ANG 2.09223
AOA 1072.009797
ARS 1467.66093
AUD 1.776117
AWG 2.107194
AZN 1.996407
BAM 1.954947
BBD 2.35987
BDT 142.117981
BGN 1.954947
BHD 0.440608
BIF 3482.380329
BMD 1.16904
BND 1.495547
BOB 8.093468
BRL 6.502088
BSD 1.16879
BTN 100.194276
BWP 15.604191
BYN 3.824831
BYR 22913.180953
BZD 2.347676
CAD 1.601293
CDF 3373.84901
CHF 0.929043
CLF 0.028934
CLP 1110.325467
CNY 8.38032
CNH 8.386429
COP 4691.85253
CRC 589.442774
CUC 1.16904
CUP 30.979556
CVE 110.216903
CZK 24.665221
DJF 208.129175
DKK 7.461806
DOP 70.379287
DZD 151.705797
EGP 57.855752
ERN 17.535598
ETB 161.022032
FJD 2.62128
FKP 0.865594
GBP 0.864387
GEL 3.167714
GGP 0.865594
GHS 12.154696
GIP 0.865594
GMD 83.600903
GNF 10140.57477
GTQ 8.978082
GYD 244.523293
HKD 9.175561
HNL 30.573658
HRK 7.534001
HTG 153.403057
HUF 399.554125
IDR 18972.815253
ILS 3.894224
IMP 0.865594
INR 100.333429
IQD 1531.031875
IRR 49231.189978
ISK 142.400936
JEP 0.865594
JMD 186.89844
JOD 0.82891
JPY 171.328617
KES 151.004104
KGS 102.232519
KHR 4685.955103
KMF 492.341083
KPW 1052.13586
KRW 1612.293457
KWD 0.357481
KYD 0.973975
KZT 610.663514
LAK 25188.008244
LBP 104720.201315
LKR 351.47662
LRD 234.337738
LSL 20.841105
LTL 3.451871
LVL 0.70714
LYD 6.314245
MAD 10.527106
MDL 19.787365
MGA 5177.740494
MKD 61.508159
MMK 2454.439773
MNT 4192.345121
MOP 9.450276
MRU 46.492711
MUR 53.144715
MVR 18.00875
MWK 2026.615608
MXN 21.771016
MYR 4.971343
MZN 74.771705
NAD 20.841105
NGN 1786.900626
NIO 43.01123
NOK 11.83933
NPR 160.311042
NZD 1.940154
OMR 0.449494
PAB 1.16879
PEN 4.144391
PGK 4.831891
PHP 66.037306
PKR 332.36396
PLN 4.253144
PYG 9058.047173
QAR 4.260841
RON 5.081582
RSD 117.098899
RUB 91.210197
RWF 1688.863
SAR 4.384484
SBD 9.733995
SCR 16.480808
SDG 702.005309
SEK 11.176844
SGD 1.494853
SHP 0.918682
SLE 26.304978
SLL 24514.185634
SOS 667.908532
SRD 43.497044
STD 24196.7645
SVC 10.226537
SYP 15199.68675
SZL 20.847902
THB 37.929457
TJS 11.295971
TMT 4.10333
TND 3.419508
TOP 2.738005
TRY 46.93678
TTD 7.940535
TWD 34.184946
TZS 3029.977753
UAH 48.831091
UGX 4189.171894
USD 1.16904
UYU 47.259377
UZS 14766.556046
VES 133.584453
VND 30528.89102
VUV 139.873191
WST 3.045947
XAF 655.670873
XAG 0.030452
XAU 0.000348
XCD 3.159388
XDR 0.815444
XOF 655.670873
XPF 119.331742
YER 282.732516
ZAR 20.949517
ZMK 10522.773788
ZMW 27.056193
ZWL 376.430353
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

Future on hold as Real Madrid await PSG Champions League blockbuster
Future on hold as Real Madrid await PSG Champions League blockbuster

Future on hold as Real Madrid await PSG Champions League blockbuster

Carlo Ancelotti has been around long enough to know these are the games that really matter at Real Madrid.

Text size:

A Champions League last-16 tie against Paris Saint-Germain, with all the noise, the drama and the intrigue, will carry greater significance for Madrid’s president Florentino Perez than any of their other 39 fixtures so far this term.

In 2018, Zinedine Zidane launched his entire coaching career off winning titanic battles like these.

No matter that Real Madrid finished almost 20 points behind Barcelona in La Liga. Zidane marched his team past four European heavyweights in the knock-out stages – PSG, Juventus, Bayern Munich and, in the final, Liverpool – and was instantly hailed a genius.

If success in Europe can excuse domestic failure at Real Madrid, the reverse is also true.

Winning La Liga this season however may not be enough to prevent serious questions being asked about the direction of the club if it is PSG celebrating at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Ancelotti knows the demands better than anyone. He experienced them in 2015, after leading Madrid to the yearned-for ‘La Decima’ – the club’s 10th Champions League crown – only to be sacked the following season.

“Madrid is not a club where you put down roots,” he wrote in his book ‘Quiet Leadership’ in 2017. “You are only ever a piece of the project.”

Even when Real Madrid appointed Ancelotti last summer, it felt more like a marriage of convenience, Perez finding a trusted guardian to smoothen out a period of transition after Zidane's departure and the financial uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

Ancelotti, meanwhile, grabbed an unexpected chance to manage at the very highest level again.

It has worked out better than perhaps either imagined. Real Madrid’s 4-1 win over Real Sociedad on Saturday sent them eight points clear at the top of La Liga, which they will surely now win from here.

A commanding performance certainly suggested they can overturn their 1-0 deficit against PSG.

But for as long as Madrid continue to rely on a core of players in their thirties and coaches that manage rather than build, familiar questions remain: How long can it last? And then, what comes next?

Two figures at PSG throw those questions into even sharper focus.

Kylian Mbappe’s scintillating late winner in the first leg in Paris appeared to be both deflating and thrilling for Madrid supporters in equal measure.

Many felt they were getting an up-close preview of a player that will be theirs in the summer.

Such is Mbappe’s quality and appeal, his arrival at Real Madrid would grant the club a generational shift in one move, a 23-year-old superstar to instantly build a team around.

Mbappe would update their style and restore their status, Real Madrid once again with a side not just to be respected, but feared.

The other pertinent figure is PSG’s coach Mauricio Pochettino, whom Madrid have coveted for the last five years and strongly considered to replace Zidane in 2018.

“I take it as something positive that Madrid think highly of me,” Pochettino said the following year.

Pochettino’s time might at Madrid yet come but he is also symptomatic of the kind of modern, intense, hands-on coach they have steered clear of, in favour of more conservative appointments like Zidane, Julen Lopetegui and Ancelotti.

Others have been bolder. PSG have gone for Pochettino, Bayern Munich for Julian Nagelsmann, Chelsea for Thomas Tuchel and Barcelona for Xavi Hernandez.

Manchester City and Liverpool are still the teams to beat with Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. Juventus have reverted to Max Allegri - but not before they tried Andre Pirlo.

Ancelotti has looked a good fit to prolong the likes of Luka Modric, Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos and Casemiro, who have been key to Madrid’s dominance in La Liga. Modric and Benzema, in particular, have been outstanding.

And there is no doubt Madrid's veterans can find a different gear when the Champions League music plays. Few would be surprised to see them find a way to prevail on Wednesday.

But these matches serve as a litmus test too. With Barcelona and Atletico Madrid struggling, these games are a truer indication of where Madrid are now in comparison to the elite.

After defeating Liverpool last season, Madrid were outplayed by Chelsea. The year before, they were convincingly beaten by City.

This is the challenge this week for Real Madrid against PSG; for Ancelotti and his players to prove they are still relevant, not just in Spain, but at the highest level, a force for the present rather than relics of the past.

(A.Lehmann--BBZ)