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#4 Juventus vs. Atletico Madrid – Round of 16
One of the most mouth-watering ties in the Round of 16 pitted Italian champions Juventus – complete with new crown jewel Cristiano Ronaldo – against Ronaldo’s old city rivals Atletico Madrid, who had become renowned for most of all being insanely tricky to beat under boss Diego Simeone. Outside of a stunning 4-0 loss to Borussia Dortmund, they’d conceded just 2 goals in the group stage.
The first leg of the tie at Atletico’s Wanda Metropolitano stadium – where the final would be hosted in June – went firmly in favour of the Spanish side, even if the referee seemed determined to deny them. A first-half penalty awarded to the Rojoblanco was chalked off after a VAR check, and a goal from Alvaro Morata was also disallowed for a shove.
Atletico would not be denied though, and kept pushing until Jose Giminez finally opened the scoring on 78 minutes. 5 minutes later Diego Godin doubled the lead, and the tie looked sewn up in favour of Simeone’s team. Not only would Juve need to score 3 against the notoriously tough defence to get through, but they’d also need to ensure they kept a clean sheet.
Once again though it was proven that any side containing Cristiano Ronaldo should never, ever be written off. After 27 minutes in the return leg, Ronaldo scored a beautiful header to bring the Old Lady back into the tie, and incredibly, on 49 minutes another header from the Portuguese levelled things after goal-line technology decided it’d gone in.
The tie appeared to be lurching towards extra-time before Federico Bernadeschi was brought down by Angel Correa in Atletico’s penalty box, and who else but Ronaldo stepped up to take the spot-kick, firing it to the right of Jan Oblak and into the net. Juventus had completed one of the most stirring comebacks of the 2018/19 Champions League, and it was all thanks to their Portuguese talisman – who had incredibly netted his 8th Champions League hat-trick in the process.
