Zinedine Zidane made it clear he valued results over performances after Real Madrid’s hard-fought 3-1 win against Napoli on Tuesday.
Madrid fell behind in the first half and were considered lucky to have got into the break at just 1-0 down, but two Sergio Ramos headers ultimately rescued Los Blancos and Zidane had no complaints with how the evening went.
“First half? I wasn’t restless, it was what it was,” the Coach said after the game.
“When we look back at the first half, things can be done better, but we knew at the same time that playing here, with the pressure they applied, they would put us under difficulties.
“Still, a match is 90 minutes long and we did very well in the second half. Sometimes it’s like this: we can’t be happy with our first half, but in the second we scored three goals.
“I didn’t see the tie in danger. Ultimately, there are two halves and two games. We scored six goals. I though we suffered, but we also knew how to rectify things. That’s Madrid too.
“We’re not always going to do things right. A pitch like this is complicated. We were better in the second half and recovered possession in the opposite half. We knew how to kill the game off.
“Why do we make it hard for ourselves? We won and that’s it. 3-1, 3-1, that’s it.
“Can we fix anything? We’re playing well. We can’t play 90 minutes well, that’s clear and more so on a difficult pitch like this.
“We knew that in the first half, they were going to put pressure on us, and that’s what they did. We played well. Can we do better? Yes. In the second half, we did so.
“We can’t be happy with the first half, but we can with the second. We’ll analyse what we did like always. We’ll always have difficult times because our opponents play as well. “Sometimes we don’t play as we should. But that’s it. BBC? I liked the whole team in general.
“What we said at half-time? What we talked about is what we’ve always talked about. You have to change when you start a match in which your opponents get you in trouble.
“We wanted to play higher up, put the lines closer together and we did very well. Then, it’s possible that both of our goals come from set-pieces, but that’s part of football.
“We had many chances in the first half and also in the second. We can be happy that Sergio that sometimes puts his head [on crosses].
“Carvajal suffering due to no support from Bale? I disagree. Gareth helped Carvajal in a defensive sense, as did Cristiano.
“It’s a matter for the whole team. We didn’t do very well in the first half, but we’re a team, not a player. Gareth and Cristiano worked hard defensively.”
