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Real Madrid lost the battle but won the war as Atletico Madrid’s spirited fightback proved futile – an all too familiar tale for the Calderon faithful.Saul Niguez’s brilliant 12th-minute header (from a corner) and Griezmann’s (rather lucky) penalty four minutes lit a veritable bonfire of hope, but Karim Benzema’s moment of magic set up Isco to stab in a goal in the 42nd minute, and with it plunge the knife deeper into the home crowd. That goal seemed to suck all the fight out of Atleti and though they did try and make a fist of it, Real Madrid never looked, at any point in the second half, like they were about to give up their vice-like grip on the tie
IF ONLY Atleti had played like this in the first leg, eh?
Here are the five main talking points from the excellent Champions League tie that ended 2-1 in favour of the hosts on the night but 4-2 in favour of the defending champions.
1. The Calderón rouses her sons for one last battle
Last week, the Bernabeu greeted Atletico with a tifo that simply had the image of the dog-eared Champions League trophy and the numbers 2014 and 2016 etched next to it. Those numbers, of course, held great significance – it marked the two years in which they had beaten their cross-town neighbours in the final. Salt meet wound. Real Madrid’s emphatic victory merely served to accentuate the great pain of it all.
All that served as the background to an absolutely raucous Vicente Calderon that greeted its visitors with the emphatic “Proud of not being like you”. To say the atmosphere was crackling would merely serve as an understatement – as the inimitable Sunny Sagar put it, the Calderon was a veritable Cauldron. And boy were Atleti geed up for the occasion. They raced out of the traps like hounds on a hunt, and in the first twenty minutes utterly overwhelmed their visitors (on a related note, has there ever been team that’s been more of spitting image of their manager?) with the sheer intensity of their assault on goal. At times, Madrid looked like they had no idea what was happening and it has to be said that both goals were thoroughly deserved and were not for that piece of magic from Karim Benzema, this tie might as well have had a different story to tell.
As it was, the unconditional love and passion of the Calderon (they just kept chanting even as their team’s chances kept passing them by) proved not quite enough.It was somehow befitting, sad as it is, that the very last Madrid battle this great arena's hosted ended up as a heroic, yet tragic, failure.
The world of football will miss something special when Atleti move out of the stadium.
2. Isco’s and Modric’s movement saves the day for Real Madrid
Isco Disco! What a player that little Spanish magician is, eh? Once again Zidane asked him to reprise his free-roaming role between the lines – something that ripped apart Atletico in the first leg – and he did it to perfection. Not having the possession they had at home, and under constant pressure in the early stages, Isco’s off-the-ball movement and magnetic control of that round thing when in possession proved pivotal for Real Madrid. Sure he scored a tap -in, but it was well deserved for all the effort he took. He has now scored or assisted 12 goals in his last 14 starts for Real Madrid – if that’s not seizing the chance, I don’t know what is.
His first half numbers help underline his superiority:
- 94% pass accuracy (FT: 87%)- 5 take-ons (FT: 9)- 2 chances created (FT: 1)- 2 shots (FT: 3)- 1 goal (FT: 1)
Assisting him in this endeavour to run Madrid out of pressure (as opposed to, say, the Barcelona way of passing the ball out of danger) was the Croatian genius, Luka Modric.
In that first half, he had 6 take-ons (dribbles) – more than in any match across his Real Madrid career! – and his return to form couldn’t have come at a better time. Unable to pass the ball out due to Atleti’s incessant pressing, Toni Kroos and Casemiro were nullified and hence it was important for Zidane that Modric dusted off his great dribbling ability and showed Isco that he too can do magical things with the ball glued to his feet. Hell, if Ronaldo hadn’t wafted at his shot midway through the second half, he’d have got a goal to show for his efforts.
The two were so good, the most feared defence in Spain barely got near either of them!
3. Antoine Griezmann continues to be the “nearly man” of European football
Atletico’s talisman must surely have thought it was all behind him. Losing CL finalist twice to Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid, Losing Euros finalist to Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal, pipped to every material end-of-the-season award by that man – he must have thought that 2017 would bring him new, better, tidings. Unfortunately, his form throughout has mirrored his team’s incredibly disappointing one. He disappeared along with everyone else in the first leg and he was much better on the night this time around, he simply couldn’t do enough. Even that penalty he struck should in all seriousness have been saved by Keylor Navas... a stronger hand and that shot wasn’t struck so hard that he could have prevented it going in.
All the match proved, once again, was that the young sensation still has quite the way to go before he can even hope of challenging either Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi.
Meanwhile, Fernando Torres put up an excellent showing in an Andy Carroll-esque bruising centre-forward role (that penalty award was all down to El Nino’s sheer power) and was looking like he would give Raphael Varane and Sergio Ramos a night to forget before that unseemly malaise that has affected Atletico this season simply overwhelmed everyone in rojiblanco stripes.
Yannick Carrasco looked Atleti’s most dangerous player moving forward (he created 4 rather good chances), but it was all to be too little, too late.
4. Karim Benzema delivers when it truly matters. Always.
Owen Hargreaves was spot on when, sat in the commentator’s box, he said of the Frenchman: “Karim Benzema has put on a clinic as a centre-forward." The Frenchman was on fire today making those off-the-ball runs into channels with keen precision, running with the ball well and creating chances were none seemed to be existent. It was his still underrated talent that let Real Madrid off the hook when he shimmied past Savic, Godin, and Gimenez down the touchline before setting up Toni Kroos... from which Isco bundled the ball in.
At that moment, it looked likelier that Atletico would get a third before Madrid even had a sniff of Oblak’s goal, but the Frenchman has this great knack of delivering when the hammer is down – both on him personally, and his team as a whole – and with his career at Madrid and (more importantly) his team’s place in the competition that they covet most under extreme threat, he stepped up to the plate and delivered. Yet again. There’s a reason he’s been Real Madrid’s first-choice centre-forward for nigh on a decade and it’s not (just) Florentino Perez’s affection.
The no. 9 was doing the kind of things that made the great no.7 so adored... dribbling past players with ease, creating something out of nothing, and generally giving the impression that if he got anywhere near the ball something special would happen. For once – tonight - it seemed like Benzema and Ronaldo had exchanged their roles (and importance in the scheme of things)... and there’s no greater compliment than that, is there?
Oh, as for that tie-deciding moment of magic? Just sit back and enjoy:
5. Can anyone stop Real Madrid and their phenomenal manager of Zinedine Zidane?
61 games. Bayern Munich held the record for scoring in the most number of consecutive games at 61 (all competitions), something they set during a couple of seasons spread across March 2013 to April 2014. Zinedine Zidane’s men have just equaled it.
It may the most irrelevant stat from the night – after all, Zizou did manage to guide his team to the Champions League semifinal for the second year running – but there are few more illuminating. Real Madrid are an unstoppable force moving forward and it’s been the key to their monumental success this season... I’ve been maintaining this for some time now, but Zidane’s greatest attribute was being in possession of the most incredible “will-to-win” and he has successfully instilled the same into his team. Nothing exemplified that, and a team spirit that’s always been all too rare for Madrid, more than Cristiano Ronaldo’s decision to take a quick throw and release Benzema down the line to do his thing. As big as the individual, there is no one bigger than the team. If Zidane has taught his charges that finally, it may yet be his greatest ever achievement.
Zizou had never lost to Atleti before today – not as a player nor as a coach – but he knows better than most that a battle lost while winning the war is a small price to pay. His unorthodox formation worked after his players recovered from that full-on assault of the first twenty minutes – and his philosophy, or lack thereof, has made his team a hard team to pin down.
Madrid have had their share of problems but Ramos’ best defensive display for quite sometime, Benzema’s decision to pay his manager’s faith back and a superb firefighting effort from the entire team made sure that yesterday night would merely add to the legend of Zinedine Zidane.
The question to be answered is... can anyone stop Real Madrid now? Well, of anyone can do it, it’s the great defence of Juventus, eh? What an epic final we are set up for.
