With her background in Barcelona, Mariona Caldentey is no stranger to facing Real Madrid.
She joined Renée Slegers for Tuesday’s pre-match press conference at the Sobha Realty Training Centre and was asked all about Wednesday’s opposition.
After it was joked that our Spanish midfielder must have played against Barca one hundred times by now, she said: “The women of Real Madrid haven't existed for that long, so I haven't played them 100 times yet, but quite a lot already!
“It will be always special to play against Real Madrid. I'm a Barca kid, I have been in Barca for 10 years, so that's a big rivalry. And yeah, I'm excited, I think we have a really good chance to show everyone and ourselves what we want to do and they are a big team, so I'm really excited to play against them.
“Linda Caicedo is smashing it this year. She's playing really, really good and Caroline Weir as well. Eva Navarro now is playing more and more, Dabritz, Angeldahl, we know all the players. They have a big squad and they are a strong team, but we saw it last year in the first leg, we weren't good enough, they smashed us, and in the second leg we were good and then we hurt them.
“So I think it will be about us if we are in our best performance, I believe and I know we can hurt them.”
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Mariona was also asked, after Chloe Kelly suggested that she’s one of the top three players in the world right now, if she’s currently in the peak of her career.
“Well, it's a big honour when your teammates evaluate you like that,” she responded. “I think that's the big recognition you can have. I'm now 29 and I spent 10 years in the same club. I had that step, a big chance and a big change in my career.
“I think I proved to myself that I can play not only in Barca style, which I think was important. It's just so nice when your teammates are training and working with you every day. It's really nice.”
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