It happened to me at Real Madrid – Ancelotti not worried by Bayern´s pre-season woes

Carlo Ancelotti is not unduly worried by Bayern Munich’s disappointing pre-season results and recalled a similar situation while in charge at Real Madrid, who then went on to enjoy a 22-match winning streak.

Bundesliga champions Bayern have been busy in the transfer window with James Rodriguez, Corentin Tolisso, Niklas Sule and Sebastian Rudy making the switch to the Allianz Arena.

However, Bayern have been beaten by AC Milan, Inter, Liverpool and Napoli during their preparations for the new campaign, leading to fears about their readiness for the coming season.

Ancelotti, though, pointed to Madrid’s warm-up matches for the 2014-15 campaign where they lost to Roma, Manchester United and Fiorentina but went on a record-breaking winning streak and won the Champions League.

“Our performance was not good against Milan and Liverpool, otherwise it was fine,” he told a news conference ahead of the DFL-Supercup against Borussia Dortmund on Saturday.

“We are not yet in the best shape, but we have a lot of quality and we still have two weeks to be ready [for their first Bundesliga match against Bayer Leverkusen].

“In Madrid it was similar, [but] then we did not lose 22 games and won the Champions League in the end.”

“We’re not in the best shape yet, but we can show certain other qualities tomorrow that are important,” says @MrAncelotti. #BVBFCB #Supercup pic.twitter.com/jQwEeEbkxB

— FC Bayern English (@FCBayernEN) August 4, 2017

Ancelotti – who confirmed, as expected, that David Alaba [knock], Arjen Robben [calf] and Jerome Boateng [thigh] will join James [thigh], Thiago Alcantara [abdominal], Manuel Neuer [foot] and Juan Bernat [ankle] in missing the Dortmund curtain-raiser – says he is not feeling any new pressure from Bayern’s pre-season woes and expects an open game against Peter Bosz’s men.

“We had already some injuries in pre-season,” he added. “Many look only at the results, but such problems may occur during pre-season. That is why I feel positive pressure.

“It’s an interesting game [against Dortmund]. Dortmund have a new coach and perhaps sets a new philosophy.”