Álvaro Arbeloa insisted on Tuesday that his Real Madrid team “shouldn’t feel inferior” to Manchester City as they prepare to meet in the Champions League round of 16.
City beat Madrid 2-1 in a dominant display at the Bernabéu in the league phase in December, in one of the games that signalled the end for Arbeloa’s predecessor, Xabi Alonso.
Madrid’s form has been inconsistent since, with two defeats in their last four matches in all competitions, but — speaking in a news conference ahead of Wednesday’s first leg — Arbeloa said his side can go into the tie “looking [City] in the eyes.”
“We’re Real Madrid, we never feel less than anybody.” Arbeloa said. “We shouldn’t feel inferior to anybody. We all know the opponent very well, the club, the coach [Pep Guardiola], the players. They were champions two years ago. But we go into it with a lot of excitement … Tomorrow we’ll play to win.”
“It’s a slightly different match than last time,” midfielder Federico Valverde said. “Now it’s home and away, and that changes things quite a bit. But it’s important to get a good result for the second leg… We don’t want what happened last time to happen again, when we let it slip away because of our own mistakes.”
Madrid host City with a string of senior players unavailable, including stars Kylian Mbappé and Jude Bellingham, as well as Éder Militão, Álvaro Carreras — whose calf problem was confirmed on Monday — and Rodrygo, who underwent surgery on his cruciate ligament injury on Tuesday.
“[Mbappé] is much better,” Arbeloa said. “As I’ve said, it’s about going day by day, how he evolves, but this week has been very positive. He’s much better, so we’re expecting him back soon.”
Arbeloa was part of the Madrid team which went up against Guardiola’s Barcelona over a decade ago, and now faces Guardiola for the first time as a coach.
“[Pep] always has a surprise prepared,” Arbeloa said. “He’s a coach who, as much as you watch his teams, will have something different prepared, with the variations he’s capable of using. I’d be surprised if there weren’t some change in their structure, how they want to attack, or a player who hasn’t played recently.”
Arbeloa also hit out at Barcelona president Joan Laporta, who had claimed in a radio interview on Monday — organised as part of the club’s presidential elections — that Madrid had “dominated” the refereeing sphere “as long as I can remember” when quizzed about the investigation into payments made by Barça to Spain’s former vice president of refereeing, José María Enriquez Negreira.
“Candidate Laporta?” Arbeloa said. “I think it was him who quadrupled the payments to Negreira. It isn’t necessary to say much more.”