Real Madrid managet Zinedine Zidane has admitted that talk of Jose Mourinho replacing him in the dugout at the the Bernabeu bothers him, but stated he has ‘complete confidence’ that his players can turn around their poor form.
The Spanish giants have won just four of their last 10 games in all competitions, with Saturday’s 1-0 loss against Mallorca heaping the pressure on Zidane.
Speculation that Mourinho could return to the Santiago Bernabeu has raged in recent days and was a hot topic during Madrid’s news conference on Monday, just over 24 hours before a key Champions League game at Galatasaray.
When told Sergio Ramos had just defended him in light of the Mourinho talk, Zinedine Zidane told reporters: “In football, people forget what you’ve done in the past.
“The important thing is the present…I’m not going to say it doesn’t bother me what is being said about other coaches, because it does.
“But what I have to do as a coach is to give everything, get the players to do the same, to give everything – and that’s all I can do.
“It’s a great game to play in, a great stadium, Champions League…we know what the situation is and we’re going to try and win.”
Asked if he felt he could be sacked if Real lose again, Zidane said: “I don’t know. You can’t ask me that. All I can do is try and be here as long as I can. I want to be here forever.”
“We know what the situation is,” he said. “We started badly in the Champions [League] but we’ve got a chance tomorrow to prove ourselves and that’s what we are going to try and do.
“I’ve been here 18 years as a player and a coach. I know how things are. Pressure is always with you so we have to go out and prepare well for the game.”
Sergio Ramos had previously said the players are only thinking about getting a win in Istanbul.
“We’re not looking at opinions from the outside,” he said. “We are quite calm, inwardly. In the dressing room, we know we need to work. We just need to concentrate on our games and our plans.”
