LIVE: Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid – UEFA Champions League
Match page
Diaz puts Real in front once again!
55 mins: Real Madrid 2-1 Atletico Madrid
They are aware of their strong position, and look in no hurry as Real continue their high press. De Paul receives a lovely ball in from the left side.
Rudiger slips as he looks to head it away, with the ball falling to the Argentinian. He cuts to the right, but Mendy is able to intervene to force a right-sided corner. The corner is eventually taken, but nothing comes off it.
54 mins: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid
After Vinicius presses Gimenez inside the box, the hosts win a right-sided corner.
Rodrygo provides the outswinger into the box, but the ball bobbles over to Vinicius, who tries and fails to find another route towards goal.
51 mins: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid
With little options around him, Mbappe fires straight at goal from outside the box.
However, there just isn’t enough menace behind it to trouble a keeper of Oblak’s ilk.
47 mins: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid
Atletico gets things going as we head towards the conclusion of this tantalising matchup.
46 mins: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid
While we wait for the second half to start, why not check out some of our other recent sport coverage?
After Rodrygo got the hosts off to a spectacular start with his wonderful piece of skill, it looked like it would be a long night for the Atletico back line.
But Real soon began to fade, allowing the visitors time on the ball as their fluency in passing continued to grow.
It culminated in a special goal from Alvarez, who has scored seven times now in his last nine starts.
Atletico continued to ride the wave as we got deeper into the half. Real will be desperate to regroup as we head into the interval.
Valverde chases after a pass in the box, but the angle is too acute to trouble Oblak as he fires from the right side.
The referee soons call time on what has been a back-and-forth half.
45 mins: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid
The hosts have barely had the ball in these last five or so minutes.
Atletico look very comfortable in their passing and movement, which is completely opposite to how they started the match.
43 mins: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid
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GOAL! Diaz scores. Real Madrid 2-1 Atletico Madrid
Atletico controlling possession
Real win corner
Oblak gets early look
Second half under way
Elsewhere in the Champions League
Half-time reading
Even stevens at the Bernabeu
Half-time: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid
Atletico in the ascendancy
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UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Weekly Newsletter
Real Madrid’s season is teetering, and now they face Atléti
At the Santiago Bernabéu on Feb. 19, the mood was euphoric. Real Madrid had emphatically beaten Manchester City 3-1 to go through to the last 16 of the Champions League. After a difficult start in the competition — losing to Lille, AC Milan and Liverpool, and missing out on the top eight — anything now seemed possible. The winners of two of the past three editions, and a record 15 throughout their history, were instantly re-installed among the favourites to lift the trophy in 2025.
Key to that turnaround was the definitive “arrival” — six months after signing — of Kylian Mbappé. His hat trick against City was the highlight of Madrid’s season so far, shaking off an unconvincing start which led some critics to ask whether his signing had made the team worse. This was his answer. Now Mbappé was talking about “making history” at Madrid, and journalists were asking if he could match the impact of all-time top scorer Cristiano Ronaldo at the club.
Many of the doubts circling Madrid earlier in the season looked to have been answered. Against City, they had coped without long-term defensive absentees Dani Carvajal and Éder Militão, and hadn’t regretted failing to recruit a successor for Toni Kroos in midfield. Federico Valverde had filled in seamlessly at right-back. Dani Ceballos was in career-best form in the middle of the pitch.
But Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Real Betis in LaLiga — one which saw Barcelona and Atlético Madrid climb above Real in the title race — saw those doubts resurface. Despite the City win, Madrid’s domestic form has been poor, with one league win in five games. Ceballos is injured, and Valverde isn’t fully fit. Now, Real face the most awkward opponents possible: local rivals Atlético in Tuesday’s Champions League round-of-16 first leg. It’s a game where Real Madrid will have to prove themselves, all over again.
Madrid were already a player short at the back after they didn’t replace Nacho Fernandez last summer. Then Carvajal (in October) and Militão (in November) both suffered ACL tears. David Alaba has only just recovered from the same injury. But in the win over City, two players did enough to make those worries disappear: Valverde, and Raúl Asencio.
Asencio, 22, only made his debut in November. It’s not just that he wasn’t in coach Carlo Ancelotti’s first-team plans this season. He wasn’t even the most highly-rated young defender at the club. That’s Joan Martinez, 17, whose progress has also been halted by a long-term injury. Asencio stepped in and has excelled.
“Raul has been a surprise to everyone, me included,” Ancelotti said last month. Against City, he was outstanding, providing the assist for Mbappé’s opening goal, and not once looking overawed.
At right-back, Valverde made sure that Carvajal wasn’t missed in the slightest. The Uruguayan — more often found in central midfield — easily dealt with City’s Savinho and Omar Marmoush. If you didn’t know, you’d never have guessed he wasn’t a natural defender. Ancelotti has jokingly called Valverde “the third-best right-back in the world” when he’s had to fill in for Carvajal or Lucas Vázquez. But now it’s clear: he’s a significant upgrade on the latter. The only issue is a nagging injury, which saw Valverde miss Madrid’s last two games. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest the Atlético tie’s outcome depends, in part, on his fitness.
Julien Laurens looks forward to a huge set of fixtures in the Champions League round-of-16 draw.
The emergence of Asencio apart, the importance of Dani Ceballos to Real Madrid’s season has been the most significant — and surprising — factor in the team levelling up. Kroos’ retirement left a vacancy for a deep lying, ballplaying midfielder alongside Valverde or Aurélien Tchouaméni. Ceballos, 28, fits the bill.
Previously inhibited by frequent injuries and inconsistent performance, he has seized what might have been his last chance to make a case for his Real Madrid future.
Dan Thomas is joined by Craig Burley, Shaka Hislop and others to bring you the latest highlights and debate the biggest storylines. Stream on ESPN+ (U.S. only).
Ceballos is always busy, always on the ball, with the highest percentage of completed passes — 94.5% — in LaLiga this season. He started 16 games in all competitions between November and February. Then he suffered a hamstring injury in Madrid’s 1-0 Copa del Rey win at Real Sociedad last week. A two-month absence is expected.
“I’m very sad to have to stop in what I felt was my best moment,” Ceballos said.
He’ll be missed against Atlético, and so will Jude Bellingham, suspended after picking up his third yellow card in the Champions League this season. Ancelotti will have to choose between Tchouameni, Eduardo Camavinga and Luka Modric to make up his midfield pair, with Brahim Díaz — who scored in the first leg against City — expected to replace Bellingham.
A team that boasts Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo — plus Bellingham, when available — needn’t worry too much about goal-scoring. Even in a misfiring league phase, Madrid still scored 20 times in eight games, followed by six playoff goals against City.
Mbappé’s hat trick at the Bernabéu buried any remnant of an “Mbappé debate” and made it 28 goals in 40 appearances for Madrid this season. Ancelotti admitted that the forward “wasn’t at his best” against Betis on Saturday — he played 75 minutes until being replaced by Endrick with Madrid chasing an equalizer, after having a tooth removed last week — but overall, his form has steadily improved in 2024-25.
Vinícius hasn’t always been so consistent, but he has delivered in Europe, with seven goals in eight Champions League games this season. His performance at the Etihad made City fans regret the “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” Ballon d’Or banner — in support of Rodri — which they displayed pre-match.
“Okay okay okay!!!” Vinicius tweeted after the second leg. In the Champions League, nobody doubts The Best winner’s ability to be a difference-maker. And alongside him, Rodrygo has made himself near-undroppable in these fixtures, starting both legs against City.
Ahead of this season, much of the discussion around Madrid centred on whether Ancelotti could fit his “fantastic four” of Mbappé, Vinicius, Bellingham and Rodrygo into the same starting XI, especially in the toughest games. The two matches with City — albeit a diminished version of a once great team — suggested that the answer was an unequivocal yes.
Ancelotti has found a 4-4-2 shape — with Bellingham and Rodrygo dropping into midfield when out of possession, leaving Mbappé and Vinicius as a front two — which gives the defence enough protection. The proviso: that the forward players continue to work as hard as they have in recent weeks. That didn’t happen as Madrid slumped to a 2-1 defeat at Betis on Saturday, after taking an early lead.
“If we play like this, we won’t win on Tuesday,” Ancelotti admitted. “I hope this will wake us up. Lately we’d been more organized and more compact, and today we weren’t able to do that.”
Against Diego Simeone’s battle-hardened Atlético Madrid, there’ll be no room for complacency. Atlético are a team — mirroring their coach — defined by their attitude. In a hard-fought 1-0 win over Athletic Club on Saturday which saw Atlético move above Real in the LaLiga table, the biggest cheer from the Metropolitano crowd came for two late, crunching tackles from midfielder Conor Gallagher. Simeone celebrated as if Gallagher had scored a last-minute winner. If Real are to progress to the quarterfinals, they’ll have to match that intensity.
Tuesday marks the first day of the round of 16 first legs for the 2024-25 UEFA Champions League season. Europe’s premier club competition is now whittling down teams as the quarterfinals await the winners.
Enjoy the play-by-play from all of Tuesday’s games: Real Madrid against Atletico Madrid, PSV Eindhoven against Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund against Lille.
