Nedved praises Dybala

CAIRO – 18 March 2018: Juventus’ vice president, retired Czech footballer Pavel Nedved, considered on Friday that the Turin team, rival of Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, will have "enormous difficulties" to go to the semi-finals.

Nedved stressed that Madrid is accustomed to playing matches of this importance, although he explained that Juventus are better off round-of-the-round with respect to the single matches, in statements released by the Juventus VP.

"They will be two good matches and we know we will meet the strongest; namely the ones who have won the last two Champions League titles," Nedved said.

"They are good; they impressed me in Paris, but we will play at Juventus and we will give them a hard time. I do not think the team will suffer from what happened in Cardiff; now we start all over again,” he assured.

“It will be difficult, as we have two disqualified players, but we also start from zero to zero. Would we want to tackle them in a knockout match or over two legs? Psychologically they are more accustomed to the knockout, and at the Cardiff final, we saw that; while over two stanzas we have a few more chances,” he added.

The former Czech player also said that Real Madrid will give it "everything" to win the Champions League again, since it is out of the fight for the title in the Champions League.

“We are going through a good period. We wanted to get in these conditions at this point of the season. We are fine and we are firing on all cylinders. In this sense, the fact that they are already out of the league games will ensure that they can concentrate all their energy on the Champions League, but we are ready,” he continued.

He also expressed his satisfaction with the performance of Argentinean strikers Gonzalo Higuain and Paulo Dybala, who are playing in "an important year".

“Dybala and Higuain? They are two important players; they are doing well for Juventus,” Nedved said.

Speaking of Dybala, he stated, “I reiterate that it is up to him to make the history of Juventus and, if he wants, that of world football. Lately I have seen him thriving, and he is training very well."