Real Madrid face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League knockout stage.
Former Spain boss Vicente Del Bosque believes Real Madrid have the knowhow to navigate past Paris Saint-Germain and challenge for a third consecutive Champions League crown, Marca reports.
Los Blancos have won the past two Champions League titles, and added to their European glory with the La Liga title last May and the Spanish Super Cup at the beginning of the current campaign.
Under Zinedine Zidane, the Spanish giants have won as many as eight titles, yet currently the team are struggling for consistency and find themselves way off the pace in La Liga and out of the Copa Del Rey.
With PSG as upcoming opponents in the Champions League knockout phase, many are predicting an early exit for Zidane’s men, although former manager Del Bosque is not writing his former side off just yet.
“We know that Real Madrid and Barcelona are dominating European football, they’ve shown it in recent years. Real have won three of the last four European Cups and they only just missed out in 2013 and 2015,” Del Bosque told Marca.
“The current Madrid team know how to play these games, it is certain that no-one wants to play PSG, and although they aren’t as good as last year, they are an intimidating rival.”
PSG are currently leading Ligue 1 by some distance and with record-signing Neymar, French sensation Kylian Mbappe and Edison Cavani up front they have arguably the most feared strike force in the world.
But Madrid thrive in such situations, and Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo always seems to find his best when the stakes are highest so it would be foolish to write them off in such situations.
Del Bosque led Madrid to their eighth and ninth Champions League titles, with current manager Zidane scoring the winner in the latter (a 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen) with arguably one of the competition’s most memorable goals.
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