Declan Rice and his teammates are going into tonight’s UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg at PSG in a positive mindset that we can turn the tie around.
We’re 1-0 down on aggregate ahead of today’s game at Parc des Princes, but are full of belief that we can still make it to the final against Inter.
“Nothing changes to be honest with you,” Rice said in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday. “It’s a semi-final, it’s 90 minutes away from a final, I think that tells you everything you need to know. I think the manager spoke to us, us as a group of players know what we can achieve and it’s a game of football.
“We can go out there and we can achieve something great for this club and that’s what we want to do. We obviously know we’re 1-0 down but we have full belief, full positivity that we’re going to go out there and win.”
Reflecting on the first leg last week, Rice said: “I think the first 15 minutes, I think the early goal probably shocked us a little bit and it took us probably 15-20 minutes to get a foothold in the game.
“But once we started keeping the ball a little bit and started to create some chances and obviously [Gianluigi] Donnarumma made some amazing saves, we had full belief and then in the second half, obviously there was a little blip with probably 10 minutes to go where they hit the crossbar and we put one wide. But we had some massive chances as well so I think this game is going to be a really good game and like I said we’re really positive and we have full belief we can come here and do something special.
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“I think if we’re the best versions of ourselves, we know we can do that, there’s no stopping us getting into that final. We really need to be positive, you can’t come into a semi-final away at Paris and not have that belief and courage that you’re going to come here and win the game. So we’re ready and we’re looking forward to it, it’s going to be a really special night to be a part of.
“It’s the semi-final of the Champions League but I don’t put too much pressure on myself. It’s us versus them and we obviously know what we have to do to get to the final, like I said I’ve played in semi-finals before and I was required to get to finals. Hopefully as a group we can pull through and we can achieve something really, really good and make it a really special night for this club.”
Rice played a huge part in the quarter-finals by scoring two sumptuous free-kicks at home to Real Madrid, and Mikel Arteta is hoping for more of such events from the whole team.
“I think the manager calls them magic moments,” Rice explained. “He always talks about them, someone delivering a magic moment.
“I think in that game against Madrid, I was able to produce two free kicks which were incredible. Tomorrow night in the semi-final it’s set up for someone else to maybe get that magic moment. Hopefully it’s me again!”