{"id":1682198,"date":"2022-10-10T17:55:14","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682198"},"modified":"2022-10-10T17:55:23","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:55:23","slug":"soccer-benzema-returns-as-real-eye-champions-league-knockout-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/soccer-benzema-returns-as-real-eye-champions-league-knockout-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Benzema returns as Real eye Champions League knockout stage"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsoccer-benzema-returns-as-real-eye-champions-league-knockout-stage%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682198&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>By Anita Kobylinska<\/p>\n<p>WARSAW (Reuters) \u2013     Real Madrid will focus on sealing a place in the Champions League knockout stage with a win against Shakhtar Donetsk in Warsaw on Tuesday and striker Karim Benzema will be back in the team to help, coach Carlo Ancelotti said<\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1663871513696-art-1\">\n<\/div>\n<p>Real Madrid are top of Group F on a maximum nine points from three games and a win against second-placed Shakhtar \u2014 on five points \u2014 will take them into the knockout phase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQualifying from the group stage is the first goal of the season because it comes very early, very fast and the sooner we do it, the better,\u201d Ancelotti told a news conference on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClearly, mentally, this can give you more energy for the (Spanish league). But we also have to keep in mind that Real Madrid in the Champions League can\u2019t think about not playing a serious match.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Italian coach confirmed there would be changes to his team ahead of \u2018El Clasico\u2019 against rivals Barcelona on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>While Ancelotti said he may rest forward Vinicius Jr., who scored in their 2-1 win over Shakhtar in Madrid and has played a lot recently, Benzema will return after being given a rest in the 1-0 win at Getafe on Saturday in LaLiga.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKarim is fine. It\u2019s quite clear that tomorrow he will start the game. He\u2019s going to play because he\u2019s rested \u2014 like (Toni) Kroos, (Ferland) Mendy, they\u2019re fresh to play,\u201d Ancelotti said.<\/p>\n<p>Frenchman Benzema, who suffered two thigh injuries early in September, played the full 90 minutes against Osasuna and Shakhtar but had muscle fatigue so did not play at Getafe.<\/p>\n<p>COURTOIS MISSING<\/p>\n<p>In Warsaw, where Shakhtar are hosting their Champions League matches due to the war in Ukraine, Real will still be without first-choice goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois so Ukraine\u2019s Andriy Lunin will continue to deputise.<\/p>\n<p>The Belgian is set to return to training on Thursday, however, and should be ready to face Barca, Ancelotti said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Lunin) is young, has a lot of quality, these games will help him to accumulate experience and knowledge \u2014 which are the only thing he lacks at the moment because his quality in goal is the quality of a great goalkeeper,\u201d Ancelotti added.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how the 23-year-old Lunin was coping with news from Ukraine about the war, which Russia calls a \u2018special military operation\u2019, Real\u2019s coach said both himself and the team were there to support him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAndriy is quite shy, he is not a person who talks too much. It is normal that everything that is happening affects him, as it affects everyone,\u201d Ancelotti said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are in solidarity with them (Shakhtar) and we have a lot of respect for them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo play with these kind of difficulties means a lot to them, to give a good image of a Ukrainian team that is suffering like the whole Ukrainian population\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>(This story has been corrected to fix player in paragraph 8.)<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Anita Kobylinska in Warsaw; Editing by Ken Ferris)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/soccer-benzema-returns-as-real\/attachment\/file-photo-champions-league-group-f-real-madrid\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI9910J-BASEIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI9910J-BASEIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anita Kobylinska WARSAW (Reuters) \u2013 Real Madrid will focus on sealing a place in the Champions League knockout stage with a win against Shakhtar Donetsk in Warsaw on Tuesday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1682198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}