On the eve of Bayer Leverkusen - Milan, the second matchday of the Champions League, the German team's coach, Xabi Alonso, spoke in a press conference.
Here are his words, relayed via Milan Press:
“A home competition, against this great team with prestige and individual quality. We are ready, we can do it. It will be a good match.”
He added:
“We need to adapt, of course, we have a plan. Anything can happen. We must defend well. In Munich, we did a good job, we know our style, and I expect a match similar to the one against Bayern Munich on Saturday... It will be a match where we must be very smart both with and without the ball. We don’t want them to dominate the match. They are good in transitions, they have many fast players with great quality. It will be a great match: we will have to play well.”
On Alvaro Morata, Alonso said:
“Morata is a fantastic player. We played well together back then, he’s very mature and has a lot of experience. He’s very competitive and intelligent, but we hope tomorrow won’t be his best day.”
On Christian Pulisic:
“Pulisic? He’s in a very good moment. He’s very important for Milan, he’s very fast. We can’t focus only on one player. We have to defend and attack well.”
Can Robert Andrich play?
“He played very well against Bayern, we have other options as well, and tomorrow we will decide who to field. I’m very happy with his performances, his goal against Bayern was very important.”
Champions League final 2005 against Milan, do you think about it? Was it the most special night of your career?
“Very important for my career. After 20 years, we can still talk about it, the memory of Istanbul is beautiful, it was an incredible victory. But then two years later we lost in the final (vs Milan in Athens).”
Xabi Alonso concluded:
“Milan is part of Champions League history, it’s a great honour for us to play against them. I followed the teams of Sacchi and Capello.”
