After a rough start to the Champions League, the defending champions Real Madrid regained stability in the competition however they are yet to pass a significant hurdle to reach the Round of 16 stage. The Los Blancos recorded a routine victory over the French club Brest on Wednesday and finished the group stage at the 11th spot on the table. The brace from Rodrygo and a brilliant strike from Jude Bellingham gave Madrid the win at the Stade du Roudourou.
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Carlo Ancelotti Does Not Fancy UCL's New Format
Next up, Real Madrid will have to deal with either Celtic or Manchester City in the two-legged play-off in February. The winner will make it to the last 16. Following the culmination of the game against Brest, Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti expressed contentment over the way his team fared in the match but also could not refrain from laying out the cost the team could pay for the early slip-up.
"It was a good game,” the 65-year-old Italian said after the final whistle, adding that “today, we played well and were solid so we’re happy. It’s a shame we didn’t wake up earlier in the competition, but we’re happy to be here at this moment.”
The Real Madrid boss commented: “Defensively and offensively, we were good. We’re in a good moment and we feel good about things, so we want to keep that going. There’s no doubt about it, we played well today.”
But while Stade Brestois have been one of the surprise packages of this revamped Champions League format, Real Madrid’s potential opponents in the play-offs pose an entirely different threat.
Los Blancos are set to face either Manchester City or Celtic over two legs in February, and while Ancelotti stressed that “we’ll have to wait for the draw,” he admitted that “if we get City, it’ll be complicated for us both.”
“City have a better chance of winning the Champions League than Celtic […] so we wouldn’t like to play against them, but if we do draw them, then we’ll play like we have in other years.”
Asked for his thoughts on the new league phase format that debuted this season in the Champions League, Ancelotti made his stance clear.
“I don’t like this format because there are too many matches, and my idea for football is to have less matches for players rather than giving them more.”