30th April, 2013
Despite the fact that his team are in clear advantage to qualify for the final of the UEFA Champions League, coach of Borussia Dortmund, Jurgen Klopp has declared that his German side will take the fight Real Madrid in the semi-final second leg cracker tonight at Bernabeu, Spain.
Klopp said that his team are ready and would not be overawed by the occasion. According to him, “I’m sure we won’t freeze. We played Bayern Munich in the German Cup final last year when we were champions. They really wanted to beat us in the game, as they had all season, and my team was pretty cool in this moment (Dortmund won 5-2). The only way to reach your dream is to be brave.”
Only one team have been knocked out of the Champions League after winning the first leg 4-1 – AC Milan, who were eliminated by Deportivo in 2004 – but Klopp urged caution.
“Real Madrid believe they can come back against us,” he added. “And, if they believe so, they will act accordingly. We are ready for them to try everything they can and we do not feel that we are already in the final.
“We know we will have to fight. We know we are not a normal semi-finalist and will behave accordingly.”
Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho said that his team will first go out to ensure they win the crucial tie, and only then look to see if they can score enough goals to reach the final.
Over the past few days hope has been building in the Spanish capital that their side can achieve the almost impossible.
Mourinho still believes that anything could happen, but only if his players remained focused and played their usual game.
“We will go out to play, and try and get in front,” Mourinho said. “If we are 1-0 up, we need two goals to win. We must go minute by minute, goal by goal, until the last minute of the game. We must first try to win the game, then if we are ahead, try and score more and see if we can make the final. Football is football, and everything is possible.”
Meanwhile, Sergio Ramos knows Real Madrid were outplayed by Borussia Dortmund last week. However, the Spanish international refuses to throw in the towel just yet.
“There is no bigger motivation than playing in a UEFA Champions League final,” said Ramos, a FIFA World Cup and two-time UEFA European Championship winner with Spain. “I’ve been here for eight years and never played in one. There is nothing better – we have to believe we can get back into it.”
“We want revenge,” added Ramos, who operated at right-back at the BVB Stadion. “We have negative memories from the first leg and we want to play. We know our fans will support us from the first minute but that won’t be of any use if we are not focused on the game. We know what we have to do and what happened in Dortmund. We know how good a team Borussia Dortmund are.
“Qualifying will be much harder if they score. It is complicated for us but if we want to be in the final we have to beat the best teams. The result in Dortmund was fair – there is nothing left to say when you lose as we did last week. We just have to do our best,” the 27-year-old said.