Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 7y

Napoli goalkeeper Pepe Reina: 'We can beat Madrid 2-0 at home'

Napoli goalkeeper Pepe Reina said his team could still turn the tie around following their 3-1 defeat at Real Madrid in Wednesday's Champions League round-of-16 first-leg match, saying that Zinedine Zidane's team would face a "warm welcome" in the return game at the San Paolo.

On just eight minutes, Napoli's Lorenzo Insigne shocked the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu and home goalkeeper Keylor Navas with a superb 35-yard strike, but Karim Benzema soon equalised as Zinedine Zidane's defending champions moved through the gears and dominated proceedings.

Two fine long-range strikes from midfielders Toni Kroos and Casemiro within five minutes of each other in the second half then put Madrid in control of the tie ahead of the second leg in Italy on Tuesday, March 7.

Speaking on BeIn Sports after the game, the former Barcelona, Liverpool and Bayern Munich goalkeeper said that the away goal could turn out very important and he remained confident his team could still go through to what would be their first-ever Champions League quarterfinal.

"We can beat Madrid 2-0 at home and that is the challenge we face now," Reina said. "The away goal is important, we are going to pressure them from the start.

"Madrid was favourite before, they are still favourite now, but they will get a warm welcome at the San Paolo."

Reina was busy throughout making saves from Benzema and James Rodriguez in particular to keep the score down -- and said that he had no complaints over the 3-1 scoreline.

"It is a result which hurts us, although it is fair as they created a lot of problems for us," he said. "They made us defend very deep and we felt a bit uncomfortable as there was a lot of space."

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