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Chelsea legend Frank Lebouef believes his former club can still progress to the Champions League semifinals, despite going into tonight's second leg at Real Madrid two goals down.
Los Blancos lead the tie 3-1 thanks to a memorable Karim Benzema hat-trick at Stamford Bridge.After the clash in the first leg, Blues boss Thomas Tuchel told The Metro that his side's chances of progression were gone.
However, Chelsea head into the Bernabeu encounter off the back of a confidence boosting 6-0 Premier League win over Southampton at the weekend. Lebouef believes that the quarter-final tie is far from over.
Lebouef, who made 144 league appearances for the Blues between 1996-2001, told ESPN:
"Of course they can, the away goals don't count anymore and I don't see why it's not possible for Chelsea to win 2-0 and go to extra time or even win 3-0 against Real Madrid when I saw Barcelona beat them 4-0. I find it pretty unfair with Mr. Tuchel, I think he said that they couldn't win if they played the same way. I really think it's possible, even Real Madrid players know that!"
Chelsea face huge task to progress past Real Madrid
While the tie may not be dead in the minds of many, Chelsea's players will be well aware of the challenge they face in the Spanish capital.
Los Blancos are the 13-time European champions, including four titles in the previous eight seasons. They have won eight of their previous nine games and possess Europe's most in-form striker in Benzema, who has scored 12 goals in his previous eight appearances.
Chelsea, though, are the defending European champions, and knocked tonight's opponents out in the semifinals last season. The Blues proved against the Saints on Saturday that they are capable of scoring plenty of goals, even without the currently injured Romelu Lukaku. Timo Werner scored twice at St. Mary's, but isn't expected to start at the La Liga leaders.
Tuchel was slightly more optimistic in his pre-match press conference than he was following last week's defeat, but still believes the job will be incredibly difficult. The German was quoted by BBC Sport as saying:
"It is one of the biggest challenges to perform away at the Bernabeu. It is even more difficult if you have to earn a certain result, if you need to win with a minimum of two goals or better or maybe a three-goal difference. That makes it almost impossible and very, very difficult, but still it is worth trying. We need nothing else than a fantastic script that we want to be able to overcome this.
