Zidane: “Yes, I’m watching Barça and Atleti’s matches, I like watching football”

Real Madrid have three matches remaining this LaLiga Santander season, starting with Thursday’s clash with Granada. Asked about this match in his pre-match press conference, Zinedine Zidane said: “There are just three matches left and we’ll focus on tomorrow’s match against Granada first. Granada have had a phenomenal season. They’re really good and have a really good coach. So tomorrow will be a difficult game for us, but we know we have to play a top game, at 100 percent, from minute one until the end. They’ll also want to play well against us.”

Asked if he is too nervous to watch the matches of Real Madrid’s title rivals, like Ronald Koeman and Diego Simeone have said, Zidane said he has a different feeling. “No, I watch the matches if I can,” he said. “I just like football.”

One interesting dynamic in play this week is the fact that Castilla are playing for their promotion playoffs, at the same time as the first team might need some youngsters to fill the gaps caused by injury. Asked about this dilemma, Zidane said: “The first team is always important, but Castilla too. They have a lot to play for too. But, if we need players then we’ll always take players from the B team. I think that’s good for everything. I’m in total communication with Raúl about these things.”

Zidane was directly asked if he thinks Real Madrid would be top of the table with different refereeing. “No, I’m not going to speak more about these things,” he replied. “Every time I say something it’ll create a drama over nothing.”