Real Madrid welcome Paris Saint-Germain to the Santiago Bernabeu tomorrow evening in a titanic Champions League date. A place in the quarter-final of Europe’s premier competition is at stake and PSG have a slight advantage courtesy of their 1-0 victory in the first leg back at the Parc des Princes.
Kylian Mbappe was the decisive man on that night, scoring a dramatic winner in stoppage time to hand his team a lead. He’s a doubt for tomorrow’s game due to an injury he sustained during training on Monday, while Madrid are sweating on the fitness of midfield metronome Toni Kroos ahead of the game.
Both sides are top of their respective leagues by considerable distance. Madrid are eight points clear of Sevilla in La Liga while PSG are 13 ahead of Nice in Ligue 1. Madrid are coming into the game in winning form; they beat Real Sociedad 4-1 on Saturday. PSG aren’t; they lost 1-0 to Nice the very same evening.
Speaking pre-match in comments carried by Cope, Luka Modric was asked whether he’d like to play with Mbappe some day. The Frenchman is heavily linked with a summer move to the Santiago Bernabeu. “We all want to play with great players and Mbappe is one of them for sure,” Modric said.
“Of course I’d like to play with him on my team but we’ll have to see what happens in the future; right now he’s a PSG player. It’s hard to talk about players who aren’t here because other teams get angry and can misunderstand the comments. But I’m sure there isn’t a player who doesn’t want to play alongside him.”
Modric rejected the idea that the Madrid dressing room is paying too much attention to Mbappe’s fitness issues. “To be honest, we haven’t even talked about this, we’re focused on ourselves. We don’t want anyone to get injured; I hope Kylian is fine and plays. If he plays it’s because he’s at 100% because in these games you don’t play if you’re not at your best.”
