Carlo Ancelotti believes Real Madrid’s Champions League tie with Liverpool is “not all over” despite the Spaniards romping to historic victory at Anfield.
Real came from 2-0 down to win 5-2 and inflict the Reds’ heaviest home defeat in their European history in their round of 16 first leg on Tuesday evening.
Liverpool will now need to match their biggest comeback ever – beating Barcelona 4-0 in the Champions League semi-final in 2019 – to keep alive their faint hopes in the competition.
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But Ancelotti refused to become carried away with his team’s performance.
“We have taken advantage after 90 minutes,” said the Real boss. “We now have to manage and control what happened in the second leg in Madrid.
“Liverpool are a very competitive team and created a lot of problem for us at the start of the game and we have to think the same again, they will make us suffer in moments. It is not all over. I can’t say the tie is decided yet.
“What was I thinking at 2-0 down? I remembered Manchester City in the semi-final last season. We improved in that game. I was hoping the same thing might happen and we’ve done even better than that. It wasn’t unpredictable, the start. We knew we would come under pressure.”
Asked if it was his most spectacular away win in Europe as Real boss, Ancelotti said: “Yes, winning here is never easy of course. In such a decisive manner and uncomplicated way in the second half, we are very, very happy with our performance.”
Real had beaten Liverpool in markedly different fashion in the final last season when Vinicius Jr – who scored twice on Tuesday – netted the only goal.
And Ancelotti added: “Honestly, Liverpool is still a fantastic team in my opinion. They are able to play with an intensity that is difficult to find. Liverpool didn’t change (from the final).
“Our strategy was different for sure. We planned to play a different game from the final. The final was a low block and to use counter-attack. Tonight was a little bit different.
“It was more of an open game than the final. It was important to score here, we gambled on that. We wanted to try and be strong up front with a forward line that would give us a chance of scoring. We hoped the game would be open and picked a team for an open game.”
Ancelotti added: “What happened was we suffered early on. They made it hard for us right at beginning of game. You can’t start games like that. We know they start strongly normally.
“Fortunately as quite often happens with my team, we kept our heads, we kept cool and gradually we got ourselves back into the game and showed our quality.
“We were very effective in front of goal. When we managed to get away from Liverpool’s pressure and break out of it, we managed to gradually get ourselves back into the game. We improved our defensive aspect in comparison to previous games.
"Their players up front were very dangerous and our players were very accurate in front of goal as well. Karim and Vinicius were very alert tonight.”
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