This Wednesday (17) Real Madrid eliminated Manchester City on penalties and advanced to the Champions League semi-finals. In penalties, Ukrainian goalkeeper Andriy Lunin saved two penalties and explained the decision to stay in the middle of the goal for the penalty taken by Bernardo Silva.
⚽🧤 How to stop a penalty?
😉 Ask @AndreyLunin13!#UCL pic.twitter.com/wYpQWi7eWU— Real Madrid CF (@realmadrid) April 18, 2024
“I’m exhausted. It’s the first 120-minute game with this level of demand for me. For penalties we prepared against all the players. There were three that we had doubts about whether we should stay in the middle or not and we ended up choosing just one, because there are five charges and you can’t stay still for all of them. We chose Bernardo’s and it went well, fortunately”, explained Lunin.
The goalkeeper also praised his teammates’ performance. For much of the game, Real Madrid were trapped in the defense due to the pressure exerted by Manchester City.
“There are games in which we have to suffer, but we have to overcome. We can’t always play with the ball and be the best team on the field. For me it was a great experience and the team suffered a lot. I can’t run like that for five minutes and they ran 120 minutes”, said the player.
Lunin is enjoying his peak with the Real Madrid shirt. At the Spanish club since 2018, the Ukrainian has always been the reserve goalkeeper, and ended up being loaned to Real Valladolid and Real Oviedo. In the middle of this year, starter Courtois was injured before Real’s first game of the season and missed the rest of the year. The Spanish signed goalkeeper Kepa to make up for the Belgian’s absence, playing the Ukrainian again as a substitute. In the same way, Lunin didn’t give up, he performed well in the opportunities he received and won the starting spot at the club that won the most Champions League titles.
Source: Gazetaesportiva
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