Jude Bellingham claims Real Madrid’s players ‘immediately’ believed that they can pull off another Champions League miracle against Arsenal on Wednesday night.
Madrid have a mountain to climb in order to reach the Champions League semi-final following a 3-0 defeat to Mikel Arteta’s side in the first leg of their quarter-final tie last Tuesday.
Arsenal are now heavy favourites to reach the final four of the Champions League where they will play either Paris Saint-Germain or Aston Villa in the semi-final.
However, Madrid’s rich history of Champions League comebacks against the likes of Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid have given Ancelotti’s squad plenty of optimism.
‘To be fair, after the game it’s normally really tough,’ Bellingham said on Tuesday when asked about Madrid’s reaction to the first-leg defeat against Arsenal.
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‘You have the few moments after you’ve got to do the press where you’re sitting around on your own where you do think it’s probably, ‘it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be tough’.
‘Then the more you get speaking to the other lads and see how confident they are, the more it kind of rubs off on you. The lads who have experienced these kind of nights before, it rubs off.
‘Like I said before, it’s infectious. It makes you a lot more confident, a lot more comfortable with the situation you’re in, about the people you’re going into the situation in.
‘For us, it was pretty much immediate. By the time we were back on the coach we were all, not in good spirits, obviously, but realised we could still be in the competition.
‘I think what makes us confident is the quality we have, the history of the club, the fans who will turn up and give everything on the night, the aura of the Bernabeu in these Champions League nights, that’s always something.
‘I think we still felt like even though we played as we possibly could in a game like that, we still had chances, weirdly, and still had moments where we felt we could’ve capitalised a bit more.
‘Normally when you have your worst games you feel like you’re absolutely miles off it and there’s no way you can get in the game. And still we had a few chances where it felt like maybe if we just increased our level and were a little bit more attentive to the few things they did really well, we can be in it.
‘We’re not stupid, but also we’re confident in the ability we have.’
Two superb Declan Rice free-kicks, plus an excellent finish from Mikel Merino, stunned Madrid at the Emirates Stadium last week.
However, Bellingham is adamant that Madrid are fully aware of the threat Arsenal pose.
Asked if he was surprised by Arsenal, Bellingham replied: ‘Not really, no.
‘We know the quality they had. I think the free-kicks were surprising, I’ve not seen Dec do that before, to be fair. I knew he could take set-pieces really well, the corners, but I’d never seen him do that with the free-kicks, so fair play to him.
‘That was probably the only thing though, really. We know they’re a really good team, we knew they have a really good manager, they’re going to be organised and there was a lot of things that were really impressive for them but nothing we didn’t expect, they’re a top-level team.’
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