Zidane: “This is a team with character”

A happy Zinedine Zidane reflected on Real Madrid’s 1-0 victory over Sevilla by praising the team’s character, with Los Blancos earning an important win at a time of immense pressure.

Speaking in his post-match press conference, the Frenchman said: “These are three very important points. I’m happy with the match we had, from the first to last minute. I thought our first half was very good and then we got the deserved win. We know that you can come up against difficulties against this opponent. We need to enjoy this and be happy. We now need to rest and we can now think about the next one.”

Asked why it is that Real Madrid can earn wins away at giants like Sevilla, Barcelona and Inter and then lose theoretically easier games, Zidane dismissed the notion that the players pick and choose when to turn up. He replied: “I don’t really agree with that. I think this is a team with character. It’s true that there are moments where it’s tough for us. When that happens, we have to fix a few things and then we can be a difficult team to defeat, like we were today.”

Zidane was then asked if he remains concerned about the team’s ability to score, considering this Saturday’s goal was an own goal. The coach was vague as he didn’t really respond to the question, saying: “We have to be happy with what we’ve done. I think we’re little by little recovering confidence. We need to stay calm and continue with what we did today.”

Finally, he was asked why it was that he made just one substitution in this match, with Marco Asensio coming on for Rodrygo. Zidane replied: “We didn’t make changes because the team was good and we wanted to keep that up.”