Battle Ready: Real Madrid announce squad for Champions League semifinal against Manchester City

Champions League semifinals are here. The last four teams start to battle for a place in the Milan Final on Tuesday, when Real Madrid face Manchester City at Etihad Stadium. And coach Zinedine Zidane has called up his squad for the game.

There are no surprises or answers in the list. Every member of the Blanco squad will be traveling to England, which doesn't reveal if Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two major injury doubts on the team, will be available or not to play on Tuesday. The Portuguese looks set to return from a hamstring issue, but the Frenchman is very unlikely to feature because of a knee injury.

Minutes before the game, Madrid's coach will cut five players from the list to form the official 18-man lineup to be in uniform. These are the 23 players called up by Zidane for the match:

World Cup 2014: James Rodríguez Leads Colombia Over Uruguay

RIO DE JANEIRO — His name is James, but he pronounces it Hahm-ez, and that was the way the Colombian fans shouted it on Saturday night. They have been singing James Rodríguez’s praises all along, in fact, but in the flurry of goals and teams and story lines in this World Cup, there was a chance a few people had not yet noticed Rodríguez. Everyone knows him now.

Rodríguez scored two more goals — giving him five at this World Cup — in a 2-0 victory over Uruguay that sent Colombia to the quarterfinals for the first time. Things become tougher now, to be sure, with a matchup against host Brazil on Friday in Fortaleza. But with Rodríguez having scored in each of Colombia’s games, and with Brazil struggling past Chile on penalty kicks earlier Saturday, anything seems possible.

“We’re very happy because we’re making history,” Rodríguez said. “We want to do even more.”