Mouthwatering meeting can prove dearer for the coaches
IT’S RONALDO VS NEYMAR SHOWDOWN AT SANTIAGO BERNABEU
he Champions League resumes with a mouthwatering meeting of the aristocrats and the disrupters of European football.
The hosts: Real Madrid, the indisputable kings of the continent with 12 titles led by fivetime world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo.
The visitors: Paris St-Germain, the upstarts who bulldozed football’s transfer record to hitch Neymar to their mission to join football’s elite.
The Santiago Bernabeu is the stage tomorrow for Neymar’s return to Spain six months after the heir to Ronaldo’s throne was prized away from Barcelona for €222 million.
“[Neymar and Ronaldo] are both quick, very strong oneon-one, they play quickly and put a lot of intensity into their games,” said PSG winger Angel Di Maria, a Champions League winner alongside Ronaldo at Madrid in 2014. “Ney is smaller, and that’s perhaps his advantage. But they are both capable of turning games.”
Only one of the superstars can advance from the roundof-16 games in Madrid and Paris over the next month.
The 26-year-old Neymar is chasing the supreme status already attained by Ronaldo.
“He lives and breathes goals,” Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said of Ronaldo, underscoring the 33-year-old Portuguese’s enduring influence on the team. Ronaldo has helped Madrid win three of the last four Champions League titles, with two goals in last season’s final victory over Juventus.
Juventus help to open the knockout phase this week against Tottenham on Tuesday when Manchester City travel to Basel. Liverpool are away against Porto on Wednesday but it will take something special to seize the spotlight from the Spanish capital.
It’s not just a place in the quarter-finals at stake for PSG and Madrid.
The losing coach is likely to find himself out of work by the end of the season.
Only two months ago, Zidane lifted the Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi for a second successive year but his job prospects could be dependent on winning a third successive Champions League title.
So much has gone wrong domestically. Madrid languish in fourth place and 17 points behind Barcelona in La Liga and are out of the Copa del Rey.
In Paris, Unai Emery is still haunted by last season’s failures. He clung to power despite being deposed as French champions and an astonishing collapse at this stage to Barcelona.
“We’re stronger than last season,” Di Maria said.