Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 7y

'Heated' Napoli atmosphere will motivate Real Madrid - Zidane

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane says he expects a "heated" atmosphere in Tuesday's Champions League round-of-16 second leg at Napoli, but this will just add extra motivation for him and his players.

2014 and 2016 competition winners Madrid go to the Stadio San Paolo looking to make the quarter-finals for a seventh consecutive year, as heavy favourites to progress given their 3-1 advantage from the first leg at the Bernabeu last month.

However Napoli have lost only one of their last 20 European home fixtures, winning 13 and drawing six, and a full house at the 60,000 capacity Stadio San Paolo is expected to provide a noisy welcome for Zidane and his side.

The former Juventus player, who scored at the stadium in November 1997 and never experienced defeat against Napoli during his time in Serie A, told the postgame news conference that he expected his players to enjoy the reception they will face.

"I experienced it as a player," Zidane said. "It was never easy here. It is a stadium where the fans are behind their team, very committed. The atmosphere will be very nice for Napoli. But a heated stadium like this is a tremendous motivation for us. We will play the same way we always do."

Zidane said his team would not go out on Tuesday looking to sit back and defend their 3-1 advantage.

"We always go out to play," he said. "For us it is important to play our own game, and play our football and try to win the game. We will not just try and manage the game, in no moment."

Napoli were sure to start the game very strongly to try and get back quickly into the tie, Zidane accepted, while saying his team would have to "suffer" at moments over the 90 minutes and then pick their moments to use their quality.

"They will start with lots of intensity," he said. "They will want to score to get hope. We must play 90 minutes at full intensity, for sure. Tomorrow we will have to suffer, leave everything on the pitch, as always. Technically we must always be very smart, as it is important to also play football. It is not just intensity, you must use your head and there are moments in the game when we will need our quality."

Despite recent dodgy form in La Liga when "BBC" strikeforce Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema have all started, and the team having hammered Eibar 4-1 last weekend while playing a more compact shape, Zidane is expected to return to his usual lineup for big games.

"4-4-2 or 4-3-3 does not change anything," he said. "For us what must change is our mentality, which we must have in every game. If the system changes, one, two or three up front, does not matter so much, the important thing is the attitude. In some last games it is true we did not do things very well. But I am thinking about our last game, what we are doing now, and the game we have tomorrow. And we are feeling good."

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