Alvaro Arbeloa on Champions League chances in wake of Bayern Munich defeat – “Whoever does not believe should stay in Madrid” | OneFootball

Real Madrid see their Champions League progression chances hanging by a thread after losing to Bayern Munich on Tuesday. The Bundesliga giants lead 2-1 going into next week’s return leg, which will be on home soil for them.

As per Diario AS, head coach Alvaro Arbeloa spoke on the defeat at the Bernabeu. He explained why his side were second best, although he was pleased with the performance after half time.

“Maybe that’s given them too much control. With the ball, there have been moments of wanting it, keeping it. I know it’s easy to say it from the outside, but if you don’t keep the ball, you take a foul, you sink them… It’s very difficult. And in that, we improved in the second half. But we’re alive. It’s clear. We are one goal away from tying the tie. We are capable of winning on any ground and we have shown it with the chances we have had. The opponent was not going to make it easy at all… and it was a shame not to score another.”

Arbeloa: Bellingham wasn’t ready to start

Jude Bellingham impressed off the bench for Real Madrid, and Arbeloa hopes to soon be able to play him from the start in matches.

“It’s not a right to earn the starting spot, it’s not that I want to leave him out, it’s that he had been out for a long time due to the injury, I’m not suspicious in that. Hopefully I can play with Jude for 90 minutes every game. He gave us a lot, because he took the pressure off Bayern, I think he’s much better for the game, he will help us a lot in Munich.”

Real Madrid can hurt Bayern next week – Arbeloa

Despite having the disadvantage going into the away leg, Arbeloa is fully backing his side to come through the tie – and he’s using the fact that they had a number of chances on Tuesday as proof of that.

“It’s a sign that we can hurt them. We are going to learn a lot from this tie, we have not been able to prepare for this tie so much, they have come more cohesive as a team, they have been there longer.

“Whoever does not believe, should stay in Madrid. I have players with a lot of personality, the first thing they said in the dressing room is that we are going to win there.”