MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Carlo Ancelotti defended Real Madrid's decision to boycott last year's Ballon d'Or awards ahead of his team's Champions League playoff against Manchester City.
Madrid did not attend October's gala ceremony after Vinicius Junior was beaten to soccer's most prestigious individual prize by City midfielder Rodri.
“I don’t think it was the wrong decision,” Ancelotti said on Monday. "We didn’t want to participate because we thought that Vinicius was the winner of the Ballon d’Or.
“And this doesn’t mean we have no respect of Rodri that won the Ballon d’Or because he is a fantastic player. But I think we thought, and I thought, that Rodrigo deserved to win the year before.”
City manager Pep Guardiola earlier said there was no bad blood between the rivals over Madrid's no-show — and defender Ruben Dias also played down the issue.
“Being very honest with you, I didn’t spend one second thinking about if it was disrespectful or not. I was happy with Rodri. I was there. I celebrated with him that night," Dias said.
Asked if there were any hard feelings, Guardiola said, “Absolutely not," and was keen to draw a line under the incident.
“Vinicius make an extraordinary year as well (as Rodri)," he said. "He deserves it. Like in the past when (Lionel) Messi and Cristiano (Ronaldo) was fighting for that. The subject is over.”
On the field, the rivalry between City and Madrid has become one of the fiercest in the Champions League in recent years.
This is the fourth season in a row that the teams have gone head-to-head, with the winner on the last three occasions going on to lift the trophy.
The loser this time around faces an unusually early exit, with both teams having reached two finals each in the last four years. Madrid is the holder and City won the trophy for the first time in 2023.
They are meeting on Tuesday only because they made such hard work of the competition’s new-look format, with both requiring the lifeline of a playoff to advance to the round of 16.
As well as Vinicius, Madrid headed to Manchester with one of the most fearsome attacks in world soccer, with Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham, Rodrygo and Endrick all at Ancelotti's disposal.
Guardiola admitted it was unrealistic to expect City to be able to nullify Madrid's attacking threat.
“I think it’s impossible for 90 minutes, 180 minutes or 200 minutes — it depends on extra time — to control these four players,” he said. “They are exceptional."
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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
James Robson, The Associated Press
