Real Madrid would face a highly motivated Girona side at the Santiago Bernabeu as the visitors travel to Madrid on the back of a crucial victory against Villarreal in their previous La Liga game.

As for Los Blancos, the importance of the game would be two fold, first, stay alive in the title race as they are currently seven points behind league leaders Barcelona.

Secondly, the Merengues would have the perfect chance to boost their morale with a convincing win at the Bernabeu before traveling to Munich for the return leg of the Champions League quarter-final tie against Bayern Munich, hoping for a major turnaround next week at the Allianz Arena.

Alvaro Arbeloa most likely would decide his starting 11 of the Bayern game on the basis of his players' performance tonight, and as Real released their starting lineup for tonight's game, one of their key players is seemingly missing from the first eleven to take the pitch at kick-off.

The player in discussion is Los Blancos' versatile midfielder, Arda Guler. The reason is not hard to understand, as Arbeloa has made a total of seven changes to the starting lineup for the first leg of the UCL quarter-final against Bayern.

Out of those seven players, only four are present in the reserve bench: Thiago Pitarch, Aurelien Tchouameni, Dean Huijsen, and Guler.

The manager decided to go with the three-man midfield of Jude Bellingham, Eduardo Camavinga, and Fede Valverde, which has seemingly surprised the fans and the experts alike.

Now, as it stands, Los Blancos' Turkish magician is expected to get some minutes during the second half in order to sharpen his skills during an actual game before the Merengues travel to Munich.

Although it would have been ideal for those like Alvaro Carreras and Trent Alexander-Arnold, who are most likely to start ahead of their replacements tonight, Dani Carvajal and Ferland Mendy, it is unlikely that Arbeloa would play a completely different side in the second leg.

Arbeloa's decision for tonight might be motivated by the idea to rest some of his most used players like Guler, who has already played over 3000 minutes this season for Los Blancos as after this the 21-year-old would most likely take the field during the more exhausting game against Bayern which could go into the extra time, a tie-breaker might also come into play, who knows?

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