Coach Zinedine Zidane announced that he would not take any risks with Karim Benzema's injury, so in an important match in the Champions League, his name had to be removed from the registration list.
The French striker suffered an ankle injury in the fifth training session last week and was absent from Real's 1-0 win over Valladolid. Hopes for the 33-year-old striker to recover in time have been extinguished after the announcement of the medical team. And Zidane continues to be without nine players in the first team due to injury, forcing him to call up six members of the Castilla team.
Not having the No. 1 striker is a big disadvantage in the goal of finding goals away from home, but perhaps Zidane needs to pay more attention to the defense, where Raphael Varane will undergo another important test in the knockout round, after mistakes last season.
Atalanta are not famous, but have a very strong attack, with 53 goals in Serie A this season. The Colombian attackers Luis Muriel (17 goals) and Duval Zapata (3) have contributed 30 goals. Meanwhile, the entire squad that Zidane brought to Italy has only scored a total of 23 goals, in which midfielder Casemiro led with 6 goals.
Real Madrid reaches 100
Zidane hopes that in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 in the early morning of February 25 (3:00, Vietnam time), the players will have more motivation to fight when this is Los Blancos' 100th match in the Champions League knockout round.
Real Madrid was the first team to do so, while Bayern Munich (96 matches) and Barcelona (95) ranked behind. With the current situation, Bayern is likely to reach their 100th match of the season more than Barca, after the Catalan team lost 1-4 to Paris Saint Germain last week.
Real Madrid also holds the record of 25 consecutive seasons in the knockout round of the most prestigious tournament in the Oldham. However, Zizou and his students will have to focus more because they have only won 4/10 recent matches in the Champions League. Moreover, in the last 2 seasons, Real Madrid have stopped right in the round of 16 (losing to Ajax Amsterdam and Manchester City).
Real Madrid have just faced Atalanta for the first time, but Zidane has faced the team in the city of Bergamo 4 times while playing for Juventus - won 2, drew 1, lost 1.
Real Madrid squad to Italy:
Goalkeepers: Thibaut Courtois, Andriy Lunin, Diego Altube.
Defenders: Raphael Varane, Nacho Fernandez, Ferland Mendy, Victor Chust, Miguel Gutierrez.
Midfielders: Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Casemiro, Isco, Sergio arribas, Antonio Blanco.
Forwards: Marco Asensio, Lucas Vazquez, Vinicius Junior, Mariano Diaz, Hugo Duro.
