“We are excited to believe that it can be done”

The Real society receives Barça tomorrow (8:45 pm) in the quarterfinals of the Copa de la Reina, a tie that, like the previous ones, is played in a single match and where the txuri urdin will try to cause a big surprise by eliminating the current League champion.

The Donostiarras face an almost impossible mission against a Catalan team that has not yet known defeat this season and that has also thrashed Real in their two league matches. They won 8-1 at the Johan Cruyff and more recently 1-9 on the same stage as tomorrow’s match.

Natalie Arroyocoach of Real, has recognized in her appearance prior to the match that those two defeats have hurt in the locker room because she believes that they were capable of “doing very good things” against Barça, but that, even so, they failed to “reflect it in marker”.

However, and despite these bad experiences, the Catalan and her team have not lost hope of giving the surprise tomorrow: “We are aware of the difficulty of the game. The League champion visits us, but this is another competition. It’s the Cup, a tie and there may be other factors. Why not?” she has wondered. “We know that we have some option, smaller than in other games because the rival is powerful, but we are excited to believe that it can be done”.

The txuri urdin coach does not plan to change the way her team plays despite these two lofty results: “We do all the games we propose to win and this one is no different. What is a reality is that in a tie you can not win and go through, but we are not going to draw”, assured Arroyo, who hopes that Real will be able to stay alive in the game and, with the help of the public of Zubieta, take advantage of the nervousness that a tight result can generate in his rival in the final minutes.

For tomorrow’s duel, Real will have the same players who defeated Betis in Seville on Sunday (0-3), so they will continue to be absent Nanclares, Iraia, Izarne, Maddi Torre and Cecilia Marcos.

Barça arrives after eliminating Rayo Vallecano (1-3) in the round of 16 and three days after celebrating the League title after giving Real Madrid a ‘little hand’ (0-5), a circumstance that Arroyo does not believe It takes its toll on the Catalan team: “I think Barça is going to be focused. Without a doubt they will have celebrated it because they have achieved a League, but I understand that they are on that path of winning everything and they need to beat us to reach the semifinal”.