MADRID: Cristiano Ronaldo’s red-hot run of form and La Liga leaders Real Madrid’s almost perfect home record makes them favourites to see off CSKA Moscow in their Champions League last 16 second leg on Wednesday.
Ronaldo is Real’s leading scorer with 40 goals in all competitions and he has scored nine in his last six outings, including two in their 3-2 win at Real Betis on Saturday. He netted the opener against CSKA last month when Real were pegged back to a 1-1 draw on the artificial pitch at an ice-cold Luzhniki stadium – a result which ended Jose Mourinho’s perfect start to the competition.
Only Barcelona have beaten Mourinho’s team at the Bernabeu this season, otherwise they have won every other game.
They lead the European and Spanish champions by 10 points in La Liga with 12 matches left to play, and the two sides remain favourites for a possible Champions League final showdown in Munich.
Meanwhile, in another encounter, if Chelsea fails to overturn a two-goal deficit against buoyant Napoli on Wednesday, England will be without a representative in the Champions League quarterfinals for the first time since 1996.
Chelsea was left to fly the flag for the English Premier League after Arsenal was eliminated by AC Milan last week, continuing England’s poor run in the competition this season after the two Manchester clubs were knocked out at the group stage.
Yet the chances of Chelsea going further than its London rival look remote considering Napoli—enjoying a stunning first season in the Champions League— is 3-1 up from the first leg and has won its last five Italian league games, the most recent a 6-3 hammering of Cagliari on Friday.
Napoli, the only one of this season’s five debutants still standing, twice took part in the old European Cup during Diego Maradona’s days at the club but never progressed beyond the second round.
Spearheaded by a three-pronged strike force of Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik, which ripped Chelsea’s creaking defense apart in the last leg, the team could go deep this year, however.
“Maradona’s days remain the best in Napoli’s history, but we feel we are nearly on a par with that era and that makes us proud,” said Napoli coach Walter Mazzarri, who will be serving the second of a two-match touchline ban.
With the hosts needing to pour forward to get back in the match, Napoli will look to pick them off on the counterattack.
“We will have to be balanced, obviously, because their threat on counterattacking is very good and they have some players that can hurt you,” interim Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo said. Ravaged by internal politik that contributed to the firing of Andre Villas-Boas at the start of the month, Chelsea has lost the swagger and class that helped the team reach the Champions League quarterfinals in six of the last eight seasons.
Yet Di Matteo has managed to restore some belief since taking over from Villas-Boas, earning wins in the FA Cup and Premier League in the space of four days without conceding a goal, and the team has danger men in Spain winger Juan Mata and Ivory Coast striker Drogba. (Agencies)