Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti stressed the difficulty of tomorrow’s match against Real Mallorca in the fifth round of the Spanish League at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Ancelotti said at the post-match press conference: “Previous matches have been good for them, they only conceded 3 goals and I think they are preparing to play defensively in front of us and count on rebounds.”

Regarding Karim Benzema’s injury, he added: “Before Celtic he was replaced by Hazard and he did well, and tomorrow Eden will be in his place and I hope he will do his best.”

He continued, “He has a little problem, but the team played well even without Karim. Hopefully it will happen again tomorrow against Mallorca.

He stressed: “It is clear that the system is the same, Hazard goes deep, but he does not have the scoring ability that Benzema has because he has not played for a long time, so I will not ask him.”

He concluded: “We have the best striker in the world and finding a replacement in the market will not be fruitful while we can replace him with other players with different characteristics.”

Johnny Khoury