Good news for the madridistas: as our coach stated a few minutes ago, all the players in our roster are available for tomorrow's game, which means that Marcelo and Coentrao did not suffer any serious injury last Saturday against Villarreal. Although the lineup is not decided yet, Ancelotti has confirmed that Varane will be a starter tomorrow, occupying the spot of Ramos or Pepe, and so will be Cristiano Ronaldo, who is not suspended for Copa del Rey games.
However, it is not clear whether there will be many rotations or not. Our coach, cautious as usual, stressed the importance of a good preparation for the match, implying that he does not believe all the work is already done. No more hints on the starting eleven were given, since some of the players are not fully recovered, but our coach said that he would try to be fair and conform the best possible lineup to face Atlético.
Varane, Isco and Jesé were the most commented individuals during the press conference, and here is what our coach expressed about them all:
For a player like Jesé, it is impossible to think about being a starter for the whole season. He is, definitely, a very important player for our roster, just like Cristiano, Bale or Benzema. Luckily, there are a lot of games throughout the season and we can adjust the right amount of minutes for all of them.
Varane will play tomorrow because he is fully recovered and it is important for him to be part of the competition. He has everything to be a great centerback: quality, speed, tactical knowledge, good positioning and enthusiasm. It is great that he is back with the team.
It is not easy to be fair with each of the players. My job here is to do what I think is the best for Real Madrid, and perhaps this will make me be unfair with certain players, like Isco. Maybe he is not too happy right now, because he is not playing as much as he wants, and I like that. He has been important for us so far, and hopefully at the end of the season we will have a good overall vision of what he has done for us.
About playing against Atlético again tomorrow, our coach expressed his hope that the team will perform at the same level that they did last Wednesday, with good intensity and controlling the match from the ball possession, and denied the existence of explicit orders to the players to avoid conflicts or yellow cards.
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