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Leicester need to 'be like warriors' against Atletico Madrid, says Ndidi


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Wilfred Ndidi has issued a rallying cry ahead of his side's unlikely Champions League quarter-final clash against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday evening. 

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The Nigeria international only joined Leicester in January, for a fee of £15 million from Genk, but he has immediately become a key player for his new club and played in both legs of their win over Sevilla. 

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The Foxes are the underdogs as they travel to Spain and Ndidi has spoken about how his side use their team spirit to pull off upsets.  

"It was really amazing because right from the start we spoke to ourselves and said we need to try to be warriors [against Sevilla]," Ndidi told Goal. "That’s the only way we could win. We had to go out and do everything we wanted.

"The atmosphere was nice but we just had to leave it and focus on the game. We all like winning games here, especially a big game like this.

"Atletico will be another huge game. We will just do our best and that’s all we can do. It will be good to test ourselves."

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As he prepares for the big European clash, manager Craig Shakespeare can take heart that he suffered only his first defeat as Leicester manager at the weekend against Everton. However, the English champions had won six games in a row before that and go into the game in fine form. 

On the subject of form, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez's improvements of late have been a huge factor in recent wins and Ndidi feels like his two new team-mates have been a pleasure to play with. 

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"They are good guys, they are good players also," Ndidi added. "They have so much technique - especially Mahrez - but Vardy also. He’s impressive. Everything is good, I like playing with them.

"Everyone is my friend in the team as long as we are team-mates. I try not to have favourites, the game is more important. Vardy is very funny though, he is always trying to make fun of people and trying to bring something for us to have a laugh."

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Ndidi has looked immediately comfortable in a Leicester shirt, but he admits that it hasn't all been easy as he opened up about having to sing in front of the team in his initiation. 

"On my initiation, I had to sing. I don’t want to say what I sang but it wasn't great," Ndidi joked. "I have given up on my signing skills after that day. I was very nervous standing up in front of my team-mates because I don’t know how to sing."

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