Football Tigers

The match timetable allows no rest. Hours after winning 1-0 against Betis in Seville, Real Madrid trained to prepare for Tuesday's match against Dynamo Kiev. The encounter will be held at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium at 8:45 pm CET. Yesterday's starters and substitute players started training separately in this morning's closed-doors session. Cicinho and Beckham didn't train.

The Champions League is back this week, so Real Madrid players haven't been able to take the day off today. The squad met at 12:00 at Real Madrid City in order to work out behind closed doors. This morning's was the first of two sessions they will attend prior to the match against Dynamo Kiev, which will be the Whites' second match in the Champions League group stages. Real Madrid want to improve on the image they gave in the previous match against Olympique Lyonnais, and will fight to win in front of their fans at the Bernabéu.
Fabio Capello started the session by dividing his men into two groups. On the one hand were yesterday's starters against Betis -Casillas, Ramos, Cannavaro, Roberto Carlos, Guti, Emerson, Diarra, Reyes, Cassano and Van Nistelrroy- and on the other the rest. The only player missing from yesterday's initial line-up was Cicinho, who went down in the 28th minute last night. He was in severe pain and had to be taken off the pitch. A preliminary medical report diagnosed a torn anterior cruciate ligament on his right knee. This was confirmed this morning after Real Madrid's medical staff made more tests at Valdebebas. Cicinho's operation has been scheduled on Monday.Pavón, Robinho, Raúl Bravo, Helguera, Mejía, Raúl, Ronaldo and Salgado joined last night's starters in a mild jog. Ronaldo and Salgado spent the first 15 minutes of the session doing stretching exercises supervised by physical trainer Santiago Lozano. After this, Fabio Capello took the reins of the session and started to teach his players what weapons to use against Dynamo Kiev.