Zidane: “We don’t think it will be any easier without Neymar”

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane spoke to the press ahead of the team’s meeting with Getafe —Saturday, 20:45 CET—. Los Blancos will be thinking about Tuesday’s match against Paris Saint-Germain in the return leg of the Champions League’s Round of 16, even though they must regain some of their confidence after the discouraging loss against Espanyol last Tuesday. PSG will be without Neymar but Zidane isn’t thinking about that.

“PSG are a very strong team and the player who will replace Neymar will be good, for sure, so we don’t think that without him it will be easier,” said Zidane, who later added that the team is only “thinking about Saturday’s match.”

“Players always dream of a matches like PSG, but to prepare for Tuesday, we have to play well against Getafe,” explained Zidane.

Madrid’s performance against Espanyol was very poor yet Zidane believes that the first half was solid enough and that the team just needs to perform for 90 minutes.

“The first half was very good but the second wasn’t, so we have to perform for a full 90 minutes,” said Zidane.

Nobody knows whether Toni Kroos and Luka Modric will recover in time for the match against PSG but the good news for Zidane is that Marcelo will be with the team.

“The key thing is that Marcelo is already with us,” he said. “With Kroos and Modric we will see day by day, but what matters is that the players have to be 100% ready to play,” he concluded.