Ahead of Champions League Last-16 return leg against Ajax tonight, Real Madrid's Luka Modric admits under-fire Los Blancos are missing star striker Ronaldo who joined Juventus this season
Real Madrid players train on the eve of the Champions League Last-16 second leg v Ajax yesterday. Pic/AFP
Real Madrid's veteran midfielder Luka Modric yesterday warned that the club shouldn't be written off after a poor season despite two defeats to Barcelona in four days at home.
After being knocked out of the Copa del Rey and effectively deemed irrelevant in the title race, a third loss in as many games could see Madrid's season wiped out in a week.
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Luka Modric
Last hope
Santiago Solari's team face Ajax at the Bernabeu in the Champions League tonight, a competition Real have won the last three years and is the club's only hope of a trophy this season.
Ajax deserved more from the 2-1 loss in Amsterdam that, in theory, puts their opponents firmly in charge ahead of the second leg. But three consecutive defeats at the Santiago Bernabeu for the first time in 15 years means Madrid will be feeling the heat. "In 2015 we won nothing. People said Real were dead, but you know what happened next. We started winning again. We have to trust ourselves." Modric said.
'Key match'
"It's a key match for us this season," he said. "We want to be in the quarter-finals. Our problem this season is lack of continuity and a lack of goals," the Ballon d'Or winner added.
He acknowledged that the club was missing Cristiano Ronaldo. "He is a player any team would miss and finding a replacement for Cristiano is almost impossible," he said.
"Cristiano scored 50 goals and you cannot find someone today who will score so many." Modric said he had hoped "two or three players would score 15, 20 or 10 goals and that has not happened and I think it's our biggest problem this year," Modric remarked. The club, Modric said, "has put faith in other players like Gareth [Bale], [Marco] Asensio and Karim [Benzema]."
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