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Barcelona
Real Madrid coach Julen Lopetegui will have mixed emotions going into his first Champions League game in charge of the club on Wednesday.
He knows La Liga is Real Madrid's priority this season. But he also knows the club's so-called favourite competition cannot be ignored, especially with the prospect of a fourth straight European Cup up for grabs.
Madrid finished 17 points behind Barcelona last season and a repeat of that awful domestic campaign would almost certainly cost Lopetegui his job.~
Real Madrid have only won the league twice in the last 10 years and the 52-year-old knows he has been brought in to improve that poor domestic return. But the Champions League, where Real begin against visiting Roma in Group G, remains the competition that most inspires Real Madrid supporters.
"We are obliged to try to win everything,"Lopetegui told UEFA in an interview last month. He knows that easing up in Europe to bolster the push for the league title is not an option.
And he also knows the club will go past the achievements of Ajax and Bayern Munich, who both lifted the European Cup in three successive seasons, if they win the final next year to make it four in a row.
Success would take Real Madrid close to their own all-time competition record of five straight successes from 1955 to 1960.
Real Madrid have not been entirely convincing at the start of the season."Big rival means small Madrid"read one Marca headline. It was a reference to the team having easily beaten Getafe, Leganes and Girona, but stumbled away to Athletic Bilbao and in the UEFA Super Cup against Atletico Madrid.
"Madrid can never accept a draw,"Lopetegui said on Saturday after dropping two points in Bilbao.
That result left Real Madrid trailing Barcelona by two points. The pressure is already on and although Roma's domestic form has not been good they will still represent a test for the coach's Champions League debut at his new club.
As well as Lopetegui's first game it will also be Real Madrid's first in Europe without Cristiano Ronaldo.
The baton has been passed to Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema. They delivered in last season's final scoring the goals that saw Real Madrid beat Liverpool 3-1 in Kiev.
But Ronaldo had already become competition top scorer, something he had also achieved in the two previous seasons.
For Lopetegui winning the Champions League would be some compensation for not winning, and not even being given the chance to win, the World Cup with Spain in Russia.
He announced that he had agreed to join Real Madrid on the eve of the tournament and was promptly sacked by Spanish Football Federation president Luis Rubiales.
Asked if he regretted the move last week he said:"No. We did what we thought was the most honest thing. I would do exactly the same again."
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19/09/2018
302