REAL MADRID coach Carlo Ancelotti is likely to miss tonight’s first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge because of Covid-19.

He tested positive for the coronavirus last week and did not travel to London with the rest of the squad today, though he could still make it for the match if he tests negative in time to travel.

Ancelotti missed the team’s 2-1 win over Celta Vigo in the Spanish league on Saturday, when his son, assistant coach Davide Ancelotti, was among those in charge.

Karim Benzema and Ferland Mendy, who returned to action on Saturday after nursing injuries, trained normally ahead of the trip to England.

Ancelotti has been the target of criticism in Spain after the team’s  4-0 loss to Barcelona at home in the  league last month, when his experiments with the squad backfired, but his team had won five games in a row in all competitions before the loss to their Catalan rivals, including beating Paris Saint-Germain 3-1 in the second leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League, when Benzema rallied the team with a second-half hat trick after losing the first leg in Paris 1-0.

However, Madrid haven’t won in their last five trips to face English clubs, with three losses. Coached by Zinedine Zidane, they were eliminated by eventual champions Chelsea in the competition’s semi-finals last season.

Madrid or Chelsea will meet either Manchester City or Atletico Madrid in the semi-finals.