Real Madrid aiming for Lyon fightback

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Real Madrid will be looking for a repeat of Saturday night's performance to inspire them in their Champions League tie against Olympic Lyon on Wednesday night.

Real Madrid overturned a 2-0 deficit against Sevilla to win a thrilling match 3-2 in the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium and climb to the top of the Primera Liga ahead of FC Barcelona.

Now they need a similar feat to prevent another season of European failure.

Three weeks ago the side coached by Manuel Pellegrini produced a poor display to crash to a 1-0 defeat in Lyon, leaving work to be done in the return leg.

That opened the door for a possible sixth consecutive exit at the first knockout stage of Europe's most important competition and as midfielder Guti admitted on Sunday that would be a disaster for the club.

"Anything other than making progress against Lyon would be a total failure," he admitted in a press conference after the morning's training session.

Now former player Zinadine Zidane has added his voice to Guti's.

"I am convinced that Real Madrid is going to qualify for the next round," he said in an interview with sports paper Marca.

Zidane, the man who scored the winning goal when Real Madrid won the Champions League for the ninth time in 2002, wants the crowd in the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium to cheer them on to victory.

"I remember one game against Bayern Munich and the atmosphere was so intense, I thought the Stadium would collapse," he said.

With over 250 million Euros invested in new players and this season's final to be played in the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, anything other than a Real Madrid win would be a failure to the club.

One thing club President Florentino Perez does not want to do is sit in his chair in the directors box on May 22 and watch a final between two sides when neither of them in Real Madrid.

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