![\"Martin](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/8bee1324b2ad90424028aff5751bf0dbe964e112\/0_104_4640_2784\/master\/4640.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=06a1ce270ddadebb664597c05b40945f\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt had been \u201cvery tactical\u201d, Diego Simeone said, which was about right. He may feel frustrated that an hour\u2019s control did not yield more, his team recovering from going behind in the fourth minute to draw level only for D\u00edaz\u2019s goal to beat them, his players unable to truly react a second time. He certainly did feel frustrated at how they had defended the two goals. And yet, like Ancelotti, he never expected this to be settled on the first night. Besides, if it could have been better, it might also have been worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last minute, Marcos Llorente had to dive in as Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 should have set up Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior for a dramatic and painfully familiar finale. But Llorente somehow got ahead of the Brazilian then and there was still time for Vin\u00edcius to dash away again, Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Gim\u00e9nez flying in to block. \u201cThat could have knocked us out. Maybe that leaves the door open to hope,\u201d Simeone said. \u201cAnd now, who knows, on Wednesday we could have a great night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will surely be more explosive than this, a single goal standing between them, all or nothing. The first leg was, well, a first leg: a slightly cautious game, more about control than the kill, which began with two teams facing each other from distance, seemingly happy to wait and see what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it turned out, they did not have to wait long. The first pass Real delivered with any intent brought the opener. Fede Valverde played it, and it was simple enough. Javi Gal\u00e1n had a start on Rodrygo but was slow to react and misjudged his path. The Brazilian dashed into the area, turned away from Cl\u00e9ment Lenglet and curled home: 3min 27sec and Real led. Two minutes later, Rodrygo was escaping Gal\u00e1n again, going down in the area \u2013 too easily, according to the referee, Cl\u00e9ment Turpin. Next Vin\u00edcius escaped on the other wing, forcing Gim\u00e9nez to block. Again, it had not taken much, but Atl\u00e9tico appeared overawed by it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Appeared<\/em>. Simeone\u2019s call for his players to keep their heads was met; \u201cthe best thing was the reaction\u201d, he said. Real had no central midfield; Atl\u00e9tico occupied it and, led by Rodrigo De Paul, began to accumulate passes. Real waited deep, passively watching De Paul and Antoine Griezmann move in front of them and, occasionally, through them, an ease to it all that brought frustrated whistles from the Bernab\u00e9u. By then, Real\u2019s lead had gone. Alvarez collected on the left side of the area, lost it, got it back again, pushed past Eduardo Camavinga, and smashed a superb, swerving shot in off the far post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the second half Thibaut Courtois denied Griezmann with a superb save and heard the whistles return. Atl\u00e9tico continued to exercise a kind of unhurried control which exposed some of Real\u2019s flaws but also their own fears: at some point, they know through bitter experience, Real awaken. There is too much talent not to, for the threat to be entirely eliminated, even when the collective is not functioning. And so it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n D\u00edaz, Ferland Mendy and Vin\u00edcius combined and in a flash D\u00edaz was cutting away from Gim\u00e9nez and curling into the net. The strike was similar to the two that went before and it changed the feel here, raising the volume; this was, Simeone admitted, a different game now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rebelling a second time was not so easy, still less once Luka Modric was introduced, someone to manage midfield. Simeone responded with Conor Gallagher and Nahuel Molina and then sent on the centre\u2011back Robin Le Normand for Griezmann. That might have felt like a statement of intent, a response to how the game had tilted: with a second leg to come and Real stirring now, it was more important to not concede another than to seek an equaliser. Only, it was followed soon after by the introduction strikers \u00c1ngel Correa and Alexander Sorloth, two men with a habit of scoring late goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Real have the same ability, too, of course and although there were few really clear opportunities until the 90th minute arrived \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s not so simple to play against the Atl\u00e9tico defence\u201d, Ancelotti said \u2013 at the very last there they were: suddenly, Mbapp\u00e9 and Vin\u00edcius were in, their moment arriving. But Atl\u00e9tico survived and Real did too, living to fight again next week, when there will be no second chances and no way back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This will be decided 14km east in eight days\u2019 time when Madrid\u2019s rivals are sent back into battle once more. On a night that lacked a little thunder but had three superb goals \u2013 Rodrygo Goes, Juli\u00e1n Alvarez and Brahim D\u00edaz all stepping inside to bend the ball beyond outstretched fingers and into the far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[8209,1962,1725,6096,1911,9368,12928,2419,12310,746,5247,803,2223,12234,3874,2217,10634,12309,10481,12187,13256,196,9004,11259,5818,7419,895,6348,10885,594],"class_list":["post-45461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-antoine-griezmann","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-brazilian","tag-carlo-ancelotti","tag-champions-league","tag-clement-lenglet","tag-diego-simeone","tag-euro","tag-exercise","tag-feel","tag-football","tag-goalkeeper","tag-griezmann","tag-host","tag-lead","tag-lenglet","tag-lost","tag-men","tag-midfield","tag-n","tag-players","tag-real-madrid","tag-rodrigo-de-paul","tag-shot","tag-strike","tag-the-game","tag-thibaut-courtois","tag-us","tag-victory","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45463,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45461\/revisions\/45463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Juli\u00e1n](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/b2746dd58ae8f02cf4186c5deadaca8fd92d59c7\/0_0_3372_2024\/master\/3372.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none\")
<\/a>