Alvaro Arbeloa, coach of Real Madrid, was optimistic ahead of the second leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinal against Bayern Munich in Germany, and pointed out that if there is a team that can beat Bayern in front of their home crowd, it is his.

Real Madrid lost 1-2 at the Bernabeu with a great night from Manuel Neuer, and now will have to come back in the tie to reach the semifinals. Arbeloa said in a news conference that his players have already told him they are going to win at the Allianz Arena.

"We could have been luckier in the second half. We faced a great team. We had two mistakes, two losses that we had to avoid; we had to be more compact. If you make those mistakes, you pay for them. We scored a goal that gives us hope. It will not be easy, but if there is a team that can win in Munich, that team is Real Madrid," he said.

"I have players with a lot of personality. The first thing they told me was that we are going to win there. We are Real Madrid, there is no fear, we know the difficulty and the context, and we are going to go for it," he added.

He also spoke about the match that Kylian Mbappe completed, the author of his team's goal, and stopped several times by Neuer: "I have seen a very committed Mbappe in all tasks and capable of making a difference. He is the best in the world, a constant threat. He is the Mbappe we want to see, a Mbappe who wants to be Mbappe every day."

In addition, he lamented that Aurelien Tchouameni received a yellow card that, in his opinion, was unfair, and said that a Bayern Munich player deserved a red card for a hard tackle on Mbappe.

Asked about the things he is holding on to in order to win in Munich, he indicated that his players are his main asset and explained that, during the first leg, some mistakes they had talked about before the match punished his team.

"There were situations at 1-2 where there was an eagerness to tie. You need to keep a cooler head; a 1-3 would have been more difficult. It's a shame not to have taken advantage of one more chance, but I have a lot of confidence to go to Germany and win," he explained.

"We talked at halftime that when you recover the ball after running without being fresh, you have to give options to the ball carrier. If you don't, you are constantly defending. It is not easy. The players press aggressively; we need players who want the ball, ask for it, rest with the ball, threaten them, and we did it better in the second half. That has been one of the keys to the improvement," he pointed out.

"All goals are mistakes, 99 percent. And not just one, several. They are situations we had talked about. When you try to play the ball out, and they pressure you, you have to be careful because there will be turnovers.

You have to be prepared to close down very quickly and not have many players in front of the ball. It happened, we didn't have people to close down the turnover. Sometimes, the turnover itself is not important, but how you react to it is. If you are too open on a turnover, they score goals against you," he added.

Likewise, he had words for Jude Bellingham: "He is a player who has been out for a long time. It is not that I feel like leaving Bellingham on the bench. I am not biased towards him. We have talked a lot about his return to the team and his recovery to his best form.

I wish he could have played 90 minutes in every match since I became Bellingham's coach. We need his energy to escape the pressure from opponents. I see him much better, and I am sure he will help us a lot."

Finally, he highlighted the difficulty Alvaro Carreras had in defending a rival like Michael Olise, whom he said is one of the best footballers in the world: "He is a winger who is having a spectacular season. Carreras' confidence remains intact. He has a great present and a great future.

He will learn from today's matchup, and that is the challenge for any fullback. Defending against this type of player is not easy, and support is necessary against a player who cuts inside with a lot of talent. A lot of confidence in Alvaro," he concluded.

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