T&T se­nior men's team de­fend­er Ke­ston Julien says his FC Sher­iff Tiraspol will get a lit­tle more re­spect now from op­po­nents go­ing for­ward fol­low­ing their 2-1 up­set of 13-time win­ners Re­al Madrid on Match Day Two of their 2021 Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­ons League Group D se­ries on Tues­day.

In what is be­ing called one of the great­est up­sets, if not the great­est in Cham­pi­ons League his­to­ry, the 19-time Moldovan cham­pi­ons who were on­ly found­ed in 1997 and made up of an eclec­tic group of play­ers, clinched a fa­mous win at the San­ti­a­go Bern­abéu thanks to Se­bastien Thill's last-minute stun­ner, their sec­ond group win in as many games.

Uzbek­istan mid­field­er Ja­surbek Yakhshi­boev opened the scor­ing in the first half with his first Cham­pi­ons League goal be­fore Karim Ben­ze­ma drew Re­al Madrid lev­el from the penal­ty spot just af­ter the hour mark.

Sher­iff's Greek goal­keep­er Gior­gos Athanasiadis pro­duced the game of his life, com­ing up with no less than ten saves as Re­al Madrid time and again failed to get the bet­ter of him from open play be­fore Thill pro­duced a stun­ning half-vol­ley from out­side of the area to send shock­waves around Eu­rope

Af­ter two match­days, Sher­iff which de­feat­ed Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donet­sk 2-0 in their de­but match in mid-Sep­tem­ber leads the ta­ble with a max­i­mum of six points fol­lowed by Re­al Madrid with three and In­ter Mi­lan and Shakhtar, both a point each af­ter their goal­less draw in Tues­day’s oth­er match.

A for­mer Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do play­er, Julien made a late ap­pear­ance against Re­al Madrid, com­ing on in the 78th minute for Colom­bia Frank Cas­tane­da and help­ing his team to the stun­ning win.

By mak­ing his de­but, Julien joined for­mer na­tion­al play­ers', David Nakhid, Dwight Yorke, Mar­vin An­drews, Rus­sell Lat­apy, Neil "Sha­ka" His­lop and Khaleem Hy­land as T&T play­ers to have fea­tured in the Cham­pi­ons League Group Stage.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Thurs­day, Julien said to make his de­but against Re­al Madrid was just a crazy feel­ing.

He ex­plained, “I was ner­vous at the mo­ment I went on­to the field but as a foot­baller, I kept my head calm and to be on the pitch when we scored that last-minute goal was al­so crazy. When the goal was scored I was shocked and then went I went to cel­e­brate as well be­cause to win against Re­al Madrid is not some­thing every un­der­dog team could say they did and every­one was just crazy about it."

Re­flect­ing on his team’s win Julien, who pre­vi­ous­ly played in Slo­va­kia with Trencin not­ed that maybe a lot of peo­ple think they were go­ing to lose to Re­al Madrid, but as a team, their coach told them what to do to come away with the win. He said: “The guys went out there and every­one stuck to the plan. Yes every­one was ner­vous as we were go­ing to play against Re­al Madrid in the Bern­abeu and it’s not a nor­mal league game it’s a Cham­pi­ons League game and Re­al Madrid is prob­a­bly the most dec­o­rat­ed Cham­pi­ons League team, so we just went out there stuck to the plan and every­one worked hard and we got the three points.”

He then boast­ed, “Peo­ple doubt­ed us, but we went and got the job done and that last-minute goal made it even sweet­er, and to know that we beat Re­al Madrid at the last minute in the Bern­abeu was a crazy feel­ing for me and my team."

Look­ing ahead Julien said his team's win over Re­al Madrid is now in the past.

Asked how he feels the win over Madrid will im­pact his team, he replied: “At the start­ing of the CL group stage I think every­one thought that Sher­iff was a sure three points, but I think every­one is go­ing to show us a lit­tle bit more re­spect now. We can't go back and do any­thing, it’s a great feel­ing you know, but we have to fo­cus now on the next game and we have a game on Sat­ur­day against the team (Mil­sa­mi) that is first in our league (Moldovan Na­tion­al Di­vi­sion). So, it’s not go­ing to be an easy game as they will want to beat us and we will be play­ing them at their home, so we need to get those three points and then on Oc­to­ber 19th we have to play in the Cham­pi­ons League against In­ter Mi­lan in Mi­lan, al­so a re­al­ly dif­fi­cult game to play.

Sher­iff will end round one play in the Cham­pi­ons League away to In­ter Mi­lan on Oc­to­ber 19 be­fore sec­ond-round match­es against In­ter Mi­lan on No­vem­ber 3; Re­al Madrid on No­vem­ber 24, and Shakhtar on De­cem­ber 7 at the end of which the top two clubs will qual­i­fy to the knock­out-out stage.

Hav­ing fea­tured in his team’s last three match­es af­ter a month out with a ham­string in­jury he sus­tained in the CL qual­i­fiers Third Round, a 3-0 home win over Di­namo Za­greb, Julien said he is pleased with his per­for­mances.

Be­fore the in­jury, Julien had fea­tured for Sher­iff in each of their CL qual­i­fiers start­ing in Ju­ly against Teu­ta Dur­ress, Alashk­ert, Red Star Bel­grade and Di­namo.

“Since re­cov­er­ing from in­jury have played three games from my left-back po­si­tion and got­ten two as­sists, so now I think I am back to my rhythm and it's just about stay­ing men­tal­ly fo­cus and be­ing good phys­i­cal­ly to get my chance in the start­ing eleven again. I hope to start one of our re­main­ing Cham­pi­ons League games but the team is do­ing spec­tac­u­lar­ly at the mo­ment and I just can­not come in. So I just have to await the mo­ment to get my chance and hope­ful­ly, when I do get my chance again I will be able to seal my spot again,” ex­plained Julien.