Rangnick targets repeat of first-leg performance

With their 5-2 win in the first leg in Milan the Royal Blues have pushed the door to the Champions League semi-finals wide open. "Now it's all about taking the next step," said head coach Ralf Rangnick ahead of the club's second meeting with the defending champions on Wednesday (2045 CET) at the VELTINS Arena.

For the Royal Blues it would be a first. Never before has the club been in the last four of the Champions League. "We're close to achieving that," said Rangnick, who describes the second leg as follows: "We're halfway there. It's half-time and we're leading 5-2. In the second 90 minutes we want to put in a similarly impressive performance to the one in Milan. But we'll play as if the score were 0-0."

The 52-year-old's approach is unambiguous: "We want to win," he said. Rangnick had the opposition watched again on Saturday as they beat Chievo 2-0 at home and will be showing his team the key incidents on video. "Inter are very strong up front, but they can be hurt at the back," he said. "And as they've got to throw caution to the wind that will leave openings for us. We'll be hoping to exploit them just as we did in the first game."

Rangnick is not expecting any surprises in Inter's starting line-up. "The only area where there's any debate about who will play is in defence," he said. Brazil international Lucio is available again after suspension, but Cristian Chivu will be missing after picking up two yellow cards in the first leg.

The Schalke boss has yet to finalise his own starting eleven but said there was no need for too many changes. He will be without one key player from the successful line-up of recent weeks, however. Jefferson Farfan is suspended after picking up his fifth yellow card in Milan. "He's an important player not to have and the only way to compensate for his absence is as a team," he said. "Julian Draxler is one option but I haven't decided yet. I want to take a final look at things in training," added Rangnick, who gave his squad a day off on Monday.

Two players who have been sidelined recently could return to contention on Wednesday. "I'm hoping Christoph Metzelder and Angelos Charisteas will be OK to be in the squad, but again I'll wait until after the final training session before I make a decision," said Rangnick.