Karanka: “Dortmund cannot be underestimated”

The former merengue player Aitor Karanka indicated before Saturday’s Champions League final in London that the real Madrid He has “a better team and a better team” than Borussia Dortmund, a rival that “cannot be underestimated.”

The Vitorian coach, who was second dand Jose Mourinho During the Portuguese’s time on the Merengue bench, he spoke to Efe as an authorized voice to talk about the game, having won three Champions Leagues with Real Madrid as a player and following Borussia Dortmund this season in his work as an observer. UEFA.

“Real Madrid are favorites for several reasons, firstly because Real Madrid have a better team and a better team than Dortmund,” he explained. Karanka added that the white team is “the favorite because two years ago it played in a final and won,” and “because it has players who have stepped up four or five championsand that will be seen in the finals.”

However, he clarified that “It’s not because you’re a favorite, have more endings played or have a better squad that you win the game.”. Real Madrid will win if it does everything it has to do and everything it has been doing in the last games in the Champions League and in the last finals it has played,” declared Karanka.

From Borussia Dortmund, he emphasized his role in adapting to the role of the non-favourite, as he showed in the previous qualifying rounds. “Atlético started as favorites and eliminated them, Paris Saint Germain (PSG) started as favorites and eliminated them. He is a rival that cannot be underestimated. He came out alive in the Metropolitan and in Paris PSG did not eliminate him, ” he recalled.

Karanka emphasized that “what is most important” about the German team is “his intensity when he plays as a team” and also his flexibility to “do damage with the three players behind the striker or play a more direct forward game.”

On an individual level, the figure of veteran defender Mats Hummels stands out, a footballer “with experience in and without the ball who commands the defense. He is one of those players you already know, but when you see him live you are surprised by the leadership he has in defense and in the whole team, his quality on the ball, his knowledge, his positioning… he is a good player. “I was very surprised that he was not called up to the German team for the Euro Cup,” he added of Hummels.

Karanka will experience the last live at the stadium on Saturday with certainty “The bug and envy will not go away” for “experiencing what those players and fans will experience when traveling to the final again. It has happened to me before, you see the game and you remember your Champions League. Having lived it makes you want to be there even more,” said the former player of Real Madrid.