Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti has admitted that Saturday's 2-2 draw at home to Valencia makes it "difficult" to catch Barcelona in the La Liga title race, while saying he is confident if the team play as well against Juventus on Wednesday they can overcome their Champions League semifinal deficit.
An awful first half for Madrid saw them hit the woodwork three times, key midfielder Toni Kroos limp off injured, Cristiano Ronaldo have a penalty saved and Valencia go 2-0 up through goals from Paco Alcacer and Javi Fuego.
Madrid came flying back after the break and managed to equalise with a Pepe header from a corner and Isco's 25-yard strike, however Valencia held on for what was a well-deserved draw which all but secures fourth place and Champions League football for them next season.
The result sees Madrid fall four points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona, who had earlier on Saturday beaten Real Sociedad 2-0 at home, with just two games now left to play.
The Los Blancos coach told his post-match news conference at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu that all his team could do now was win their remaining two games and hope Barca slip in both their remaining fixtures.
"This makes it much more difficult, but we will keep going," Ancelotti said. "We have two games to play, will try and win both. But of course it is more difficult now."
Ancelotti admitted that the result was not a good one, while claiming that he was happy overall with a performance from his team that should have been enough to win the game.
"The result is not good, the game just the opposite," he said. "We played very well, had lots of chances, hit the post three times, missed a penalty. The team fought until the end, and deserved to win. The players' reaction was very good, they all fought hard, worked together. This result does us damage, but sometimes this happens."
The Italian coach also said that he was confident if Madrid played as well in Wednesday's Champions League return against Juventus, they could overcome their current 2-1 disadvantage and qualify for the final.
"We are all disappointed with this result," he said. "But the players still have confidence due to how [the] team played. We gave everything we could. They know that if the play this way again on Wednesday, we can reach the final. We must have a positive attitude, see the good things we did in this game."
Ancelotti was also positive when talking about injury issues, saying that Kroos' issue did not seem too serious, while centre-forward Karim Benzema and centre-back Raphael Varane should also be available to face Juventus.
"Kroos had a bang on hip, we will weigh it up tomorrow," he said. "It does not seem to be a muscular problem, so we are pretty positive. With Benzema we are positive too, he had just a small issue, but should be able to play on Wednesday. Varane had a fever last night, so was tired this morning, but he should be able to train tomorrow."
There were also words of support for goalkeeper and club captain Iker Casillas, who was again whistled by some Madrid fans who held him responsible for Valencia's first goal.
"Casillas played a good game, as they all did," Ancelotti said. "We are paying dearly for small errors at the moment. The only clear mistake was at the dead-ball [for second goal], when we did not mark up well. The first goal was a very fast cross, and anticipation from Alcacer."