The excitement of facing Champions League holders Real Madrid will bring out the best in the AC Milan players during tonight’s Dubai Football Challenge, according to captain Riccardo Montolivo.

Milan have endured a steady start to the Serie A season, reaching seventh under new head coach Filippo Inzaghi prior to the winter break. 

This is a spot higher than they finished a disappointing 2013/14 campaign, this failure costing both Massimiliano Allegri and Clarence Seedorf their jobs over the course of the campaign.

This term, the Rossoneri have only lost three times but seven draws have seen vital points dropped in the battle to return to the Champions League qualification spots. Midfielder Montolivo believes the clash against Los Blancos’ superstars at 7he Sevens will  provide good preparation for the domestic challenges ahead.

He said: “The players will give more because it’s a huge match, obviously they will give us more of a challenge and I hope this will be good preparation for the second half of the season.

“It’s a good test for us and I hope we will have more and more challenges in our championship.”

The glamorous friendly in the UAE pits the two clubs with the most European Cups successes against each other. May’s Champions League final triumph for Real was their 10th, while Milan’s pair of wins in the previous decade saw them reach seven.

With such pedigree, a capacity crowd of more than 40,000 spectators are expected to attend.

“I am very happy to come here, we have more than 100,000 fans in the region and a lot of requests for tickets,” AC Milan boss Inzaghi said.

“The stadium will be full. “AC Milan and Real Madrid will be a very big match, they have played in a lot of Champions League finals and have won a lot of cups. I hope we will play a good game.

“We just want to play this match, we played well in the last two matches against Napoli and Roma. We hope this game will give us inspiration for the next match in Serie A against Sassuolo [on January 6]."