The thorns that Carlo Ancelotti said were pinched by Atletico Madrid's side remained buried deeper and deeper and painful flesh than ever before. Six times, they faced urban rivals in Europe in 1959, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and here again – and somehow, they each face more cruel than the last. The team lost to the European Cup final after an equalizer in the 93rd minute and another equalizer on penalties was beat again. Partly because of the accumulated pain, partly because of how it happened.
Even in these two battles, it was hard to believe how it happened. If Atletico doesn't defeat the real thing this time, they may feel they'll never do that. When it seemed that fate had changed, it twisted the knife again. A goal 29 seconds later, a missed Vinícius Júnior penalty and a great performance brought another shootout back to the spot. And there they lost when Marcos Lorente defeated the kick against the bar and Jan Oblark reached for Antonio Rudiger's decisive kick, but could not keep it out.
More importantly, more controversial, more cruelly, ridiculous, they were lost when Julian Alvarez's penalty came in and was ruled out by Val as he slipped and kicked it twice. He was not given the opportunity to kick it again, Atletico was not given a closure and sank in the most barely incredible way.
“Only God knows what's going to happen,” said Diego Simeone, but even he wasn't expecting this start. They only played 29 seconds – and the only one who played them was Atletico – when this place erupted, the noise shaking the stadium, 70,000 people saw their sides move the ball forward from their backs. Real only touched on it once. Raúl Asencio stretches to reach the long pass, and the charge manages to drop the ball at Conner Gallagher's feet, and the space suddenly opens, causing him to actually run the striped shirt.
Gallagher played it to Alvarez, but it didn't stop. Alvarez went wide to Rodrigo de Paul on the right, and his cross passed through Giuliano Simeone's feet at a nearby post. Flying behind him, Gallagher slipped in and scored. It took less than a minute, and it was level and matched before them. And if it was unexpected, then what followed was probably a little more predictable. I owned the Real for a while. Atletico lay first waiting for every ball, closing all the paths. Marcos Llorente did not let Vinícius Júnior get away and won this extraordinary athlete clash. Reinildo and Gallagher closed the other wing. In the middle, Kylian Mbappé rarely appeared. Jude Bellingham couldn't really affect this either.
De Paul did. When Atletico first proceeded with caution and then insisted on increasingly, they created the possibility that they could not have done the real thing. The clear ones are also clear. On the right they repeatedly found a path behind Ferland Mendy, a catalogue of clever angled passes that provides keys from the left where Thibaut Courtois had to make his first sharp save from Alvarez. From the left, he had to cut off Antoine Griezmann's delivery and then pushed away the intense effort from Alvarez. Meanwhile, Clément Lenglet and José María Giménez saw the header missed the target.
Almost the only time Real Madrid delivered a dangerous cross was obtained by the Oren Chuameni in the Bellingham way. Still, that was on the level of a break.
It took a long time for the real to appear in the second half. When it finally started, when the first one was almost doing so, Kluva stops another shot from Alvarez after 60 seconds, and the ball slips from the edge of the area towards the post. Soon after that, Mendy slips and Giliano Simeone squeals as his teammates chase him and Kootcore is grateful to have seen Lorente's biased cross-drop past the far post. Next, Asensio had to race to wipe out Simeone. After the free kick, Lenglet put his head out loud.
On the touchline, Ancelotti's complaints were clear. Still, it was possible for home fans to feel that feeling, perhaps even fear, would continue to have bad things without counting good moments. They had experienced eight days before, but many other Derbys also invented methods to injure the way they patrol their fate and real inventions. They still have no advantages and the real thing that has begun to stir will surely wake up at some point.
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And that seemed inevitable. On the deep cross from Gallagher, he spots Griezmann in the far post, but his touch was poor and he had no legs chasing Eduardo Camabinga, who had taken the ball from him. It was exposed for the first time, and suddenly the real thing was running. Bellingham releases Mbappe and he goes to the Atletico area, turns inward, where he is defeated by Renlett. all that For this. Vinicius was set to be the executioner, but his penalty was high, wide, and he entered the stands, accompanied by the loudest roar of the night.
Maybe something was really changing. Or maybe it wasn't. Instead, it was just preparing for an even more painful end, a curse that they could not remove themselves. Courtois made another save from Simeone, but for a few minutes it slipped, the tension rose, and every little thing carrying every pass, every execution, finality, victory or tragedy could be touched. When Anchell Correa escaped and became the real area in the 90th minute, his shot never happened when he raced over the bar.
The extra time was inevitable. This was the ninth time I had to take more than 90 minutes since 2013. Rudiger had to slip in to stop Correa after an outrageous touch. Alexander Sollos headed for the finish line. Fede Valverde flashed the shot wide. And Llorente's half boree flew wide. And it went all the way to the shootout, and everything hurts, the thorns is something inevitable about it, like in Milan 2016, the thorns were pushed deeper. Simeone gathered his players together and sent them to face their fate once more.
