Toni Kroos shared his thoughts from the media room at the Prince Faisal Stadium on the eve of the Spanish Super Cup semi-final (Wednesday, 8pm CET). The German midfielder spoke about the special effect of El Clásico and also made clear that the team is ready and most importantly everyone should be conscious that Real Madrid wants to achieve the triumph in every competition they enter.
He said: “Based on my experience at this club, we want to win every competition we're involved in. That's our aim over the next few days. First of all, we want to win tomorrow and then go on and lift the cup. We're ready, we're going to train now to see what the conditions are like. I'm in no doubt about the fact that we're here to win”.
On top in LaLiga: “Madrid may well have been performing better than Barcelona in LaLiga, but experience tells me that there's no such thing as a favourite and that anything can happen in El Clásico. Tomorrow's game is like a cup final. There's great quality in the Barcelona squad. There are no favourites and I don't know what's going to happen, but we want to win it".
El Barcelona: "I've not seen many of Barcelona's games. We've got our own matches and I've got better things to be doing instead of watching football all day. I know the Barcelona players, but I don't know we'll play. It's tough to say what their starting line-up will look like. From the outside, I can't say what's changed between having Koeman and now Xavi in charge".
Recovery: “I had a tough start to the season because I had never started a season with an injury before. It was a good time for me to stop because I didn't want another season of pain and to feel bad. I stopped and missed some games, but I've been able to prepare as well as possible to return in perfect shape. It worked out really well. I'm in good form, but I'm not sure whether I would say that this is the best spell of my career because I've had many good years. I'm enjoying my football and am feeling good fitness-wise".
He continued: “Anyone who knows me knows that I prefer to have the ball. However, the most important thing is that the team is able to adapt to win games. That sometimes means having more or less possession. If you've got a lot of pace up top, like we have, you have to make the most of it. You can allow the opposition to play and give them space and that can represent a way to control the game without having the ball. For me, the best kind of performance is where you have 90% possession and win 1-0. It's true that always having so much of the ball isn't any use. You've got to find the way to win games whilst having as much possession as possible”.
Alaba: “He played at full-back at Bayern and that has now changed. It's a really big positional change because playing at full-back and centre-back is very different. When I was at Bayern, he played at full-back. Given his quality and that he's such a great guy off the pitch, I haven't been surprised that he has been able to adapt. He's settled in really well. It's almost as if he's been here for years and that's really important for us”.
Results: “We've now lost a game and I would have preferred to have got a draw. We've improved greatly over the last two or three months, not just in terms of results, but the performances too. We won a lot of games at the start of the season, but we weren't playing very well. There's a long way to go and we have to play well if we're to win things. You end up dropping points if you don't play well. We've been playing very well in some really tough games. We've got to now keep that up in this post-Christmas period. We're in January and you win nothing in this month. We've got to keep going in LaLiga as well because there’s a team right on our tails and they'll take full advantage if we slip up. The trophies will be won and lost further down the line, but we’ll hit into problems if we start believing that we're in a really good position”.
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