Ancelotti Unhappy With Real Madrid’s ‘Soft’ Attitude In Draw Against Bayern

Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti expressed his disappointment with his players’ attitude, criticizing them for being too “soft” in their defensive approach during their 2-2 draw against Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final on Tuesday.

Ancelotti questioned his team’s dedication following Vinicius Jr’s first-half goal that put them in the lead, as Bayern scored two quick goals early in the second half to take control of the game before Vinicius equalized from the penalty spot.

“The result is good but on a level of play, we could have done better. Bayern showed their best version and we didn’t. We have to improve for next week,” an introspective Ancelotti told Movistar Plus+. “In the first half we defended but with little intensity, in the second half when they took the lead we started to press a bit more, but not enough”.

He continued, “The feeling was that we were comfortable, but we lacked intensity. We gave them too many chances to take control of the game. We didn’t want to play in a low block and we went on doing that. We were soft.”

Ancelotti defended his choice to replace midfielder Toni Kroos, who played a key role in setting up Vinicius’ goal with a superb pass and was arguably Real Madrid’s standout performer.

Ancelotti explained that he made four substitutions to inject some energy into his team and was grateful that they managed to score the equalizing goal, which he thinks has kept the tie alive for the second leg in Madrid next week.

“Jude Bellingham had a cramp, Toni Kroos played a spectacular game but the plan was to try to recover the control of the game by putting fresh legs in,” Ancelotti told a press conference. As always, at this point in the season, we have a great opportunity to play in another final. It’s an even tie against a great team. It will be another 90 minutes of suffering but in an atmosphere that we know quite well. The fans are going to help us.”