Zidane commends ‘excellent’ Real after Madrid derby win

Zinedine Zidane has heaped high praise on his Real Madrid players following their 2-0 home win over LaLiga leaders Atletico Madrid in Saturday night’s Madrid derby.A Casemiro strike and a Jan Oblak own goal gave Real Madrid the three points.

The Real win ended Atletico’s unbeaten run and reduced the gap between the two arch-rivals to three points in the league.

“We produced a great performance from start to finish, especially when you consider that they are on a 26-game unbeaten run,” Zidane told his post-match press conference. 

“We put in an excellent performance, pressed high up, hounded them and we kept the tempo up in the second half. What the players did out there tonight against that opposition means a great deal to me as the coach.

“That was all about our commitment. There’s no such thing as an easy game here. You always have to win and today everyone did really well out there. That’s now three games in a row in which we’ve put points on the board and done so in great fashion. 

“We’ve got to keep this up, we can’t go celebrating anything because we haven’t done anything just yet, but we can be satisfied with our performance and we now look forward to Tuesday night’s game”.

Zidane, who has led Real Madrid to three Champions League titles and won LaLiga twice, was very happy with his side’s defensive performance as they stifled Atletico’s attack.

“We afforded them very few chances,” the Frenchman noted.

“When you haven’t got the ball, you have to defend really well and we did just that, particularly the wide players with our wingers and the two wing-backs performing really well. 

“When we were in possession, what can you say? Because with Kroos, Modric, Karim, with all of them, possession was vital tonight. The team is performing to a really high standard.

“We’ve improved a lot of things. Tonight’s performance was also the result of what we’ve done over the last week. We began at Sevilla, we qualified against Borussia and tonight we put on another great performance. We competed well from the first minute right until the end. We’re not going to celebrate anything because we haven’t won anything yet, but we can be happy about it. We have to be satisfied and pleased with our good work.

“It’s been a good week, with three great wins. I’m thrilled for the players because they have fought for it. They’re the ones who go out on the pitch. They always believe in what they do and when you pull it off it’s a great feeling. Now we have to keep it up, rest up, and we play again on Tuesday, so there’s not much time. We’re going to enjoy today, but we have a game on Tuesday and we have to think about that now.”

Champions Real Madrid, who are now third with 23 points from 12 matches, host Athletic Bilbao on Tuesday.