Ancelotti lauds ‘extraordinary’ Vinicius after win against Dortmund

Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti praised the ‘extraordinary’ Vinicius Jr on Tuesday after the Brazilian forward scored a second-half hat-trick to help them fight back from two goals down and thrash visitors Borussia Dortmund 5-2 in the Champions League.
Ancelotti told a press conference he was convinced that the 24-year-old Vinicius would win the Ballon d’Or award for the best player in the world on Monday.
“What I can say is that it’s rare to see a player who plays a second half like Vinicius did. And not because of the three goals but because of his character; he’s extraordinary,” Ancelotti said. “Vinicius is going to win (the Ballon d’Or), not for what he did tonight, but for what he did last year. These three goals are already going to count for next year’s Ballon d’Or, that’s for sure. He is a player who gets whistled at because he can make a difference.”
In a rematch of last season’s final, Ancelotti said there was no panic in the changing room after Real went into the halftime break two goals down, and that his side had the maturity and experience to understand what they needed to do to come back. “We lived it calmly, calmly (over the break). We changed the system and came back playing more intensely,” Ancelotti said.
“Talking about scoring three goals might have seemed utopian, so we talked about small details like passing well, winning duels... We had to win the dynamic of the game and from there you start to win the game. We were timid in the first half, we weren’t intense on the ball and in the second half we did better with more quality, more pressure. It was the best second half of the season.
“We have to learn from what we did in the second half. The aim is to start the game and not wait for them to put two past us. I don’t think we can play 90 minutes with the intensity of the second half but we can be more balanced.”
Dortmund’s Sahin takes blame for defensive changes in loss
Meanwhile, Dortmund manager Nuri Sahin took the blame for the loss, saying that his decision to reinforce his defence while leading 2-0 had an impact in their first loss in the competition.
Dortmund went into Tuesday’s game on the back of two consecutive wins to start the Champions League season but were thrashed by Real Madrid. The home side scored five goals following Sahin’s decision to replace scorers Donyell Malen and Jamie Bynoe-Gittens with defender Waldemar Anton and holding midfielder Pascal Gross early in the second half.
“It’s not easy to explain, of course. We, who I thought played well with the ball, really had a lot of solutions. The boys did well, scored two goals and then went into halftime and we knew it would be very long. The second half very, very long,” Sahin said. “We noticed in the second half that we were being pushed back, we had defensive problems and I thought we should go to the three-man defence, and that didn’t work out for us.”