Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Galatasaray vs. Real Madrid: Complete Champions League Preview - Bleacher Report

Real Madrid will be heavy favorites when they welcome Galatasaray into their Santiago Bernabeu home on Wednesday night.

Los Blancos have won the competition nine times and would possibly cut adrift their own mothers if it meant securing La Decima.

A January transfer blitz saw Gala radically improve their squad, though, and Jose Mourinho is unlikely to be underestimating them.

Former Atletico Madrid defender Tomas Ujfalusi is the only absentee, meaning Hamit Altintop and Wesley Sneijder will feature against their old side and Didier Drogba against his old boss.

Raphael Varane and Fabio Coentrao are both expected to start after recent knocks, and Xabi Alonso, Sami Khedira, Mesut Ozil and Angel Di Maria should all return to the starting lineup after beginning Saturday's 1-1 draw at Zaragoza as substitutes.

Around that defeat, they have won seven and drawn four games and sit four points clear in the Super Lig following back-to-back wins.

That draw brought to an end a six-game winning streak in La Liga, and, of course, there's recent wins over Barcelona and Manchester United supplying confidence to an expensive squad.

In the last 16, they beat Schalke. A disappointing 1-1 draw at the Turk Telecom Arena was followed up with an impressive 3-2 win in Germany to progress 4-3 on aggregate.

Also like Gala, they drew the first leg of their last 16 tie 1-1 at home to Manchester United. At Old Trafford, though, they came from behind to win 2-1 and secure their place in the quarterfinals.

If the 27-year-old striker can add an away goal at the Bernabeu to his portfolio on Wednesday night, Gala fans may just love him more than they already do.

Also with eight goals, Cristiano Ronaldo is the man who ties the top spot for goals scored with the Turkish forward.

He scored two out of the three goals against Manchester United and will once again be Madrid's main man against Galatasaray.

Real Madrid: Diego Lopez, Alvaro Arbeloa, Raphael Varane, Sergio Ramos, Fabio Coentrao; Sami Khedira, Xabi Alonso; Angel Di Maria, Mesut Ozil, Cristiano Ronaldo; Gonzalo Higuain

Galatasaray: Fernando Muslera; Emmanuel Eboue, Semih Kaya, Dany Nounkeu, Albert Riera; Hamit Altintop, Felipe Melo, Selcuk Inan; Wesley Sneijder; Didier Drogba, Burak Yilmaz

Link: [Live Football] 1. FC Kaiserslautern - 1. FC Köln

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