Foxes still in hunt for final

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KASPER SCHMEICHEL says Leicester still have the punch to land a Champions League knockout next week.

The Foxes must overhaul a 1-0 first-leg deficit against Atletico Madrid to make the semi-finals.

But the Danish keeper says their battling display in Spain has shown they have the stomach for a fight.

Leicester were knocked to the canvas 28 minutes into the tie when referee Jonas Eriksson wrongly judged that Antoine Griezmann had been fouled in the box by Marc Albrighton.

But Schmeichel said: “There’s a place in the Champions League Final on the line. There couldn’t be a bigger incentive and I know everyone is very much up for the fight.

“We felt really hard done by but we knuckled down and made sure it didn’t turn into more.

“We just wanted to bring them back to the King Power with us still in with a chance.

External

“It really should have been 0-0. We had a game plan and it got... I’d better choose my words carefully here. Let’s say it was changed by external circumstances. “We stuck to it. We made sure it didn’t turn into two.” Schmeichel says the Foxes won’t have any inferiority complex going into the second leg next Tuesday, having already knocked out another La Liga side, Sevilla, there in the previous round.

“We’re not lacking belief,” he said. “European nights are something special, especially the home nights. The crowd have responded to them and have been fantastic.”

Albrighton says his team-mates must not allow the dodgy penalty decision to scramble their brains.

“We need to put it out of our minds as soon as possible and move on,” said the midfielder.

“We have to understand that 1-0 is not a bad result. We are still in the tie and they won’t want to face us at the King Power.” ¬Ê Leicester’s sports scientist, Tom Joel, has been charged with improper conduct after being sent off for encroaching into Atletico Madrid’s technical area.