- By Namrata Vijay
- Thu, 13 Mar 2025 08:59 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid Champions League 2024-25: Atletico Madrid suffered yet another heartbreaking loss to arch-rivals Real Madrid during their Champions League match on Wednesday. Julian Alvarez fell and double touched the ball as he tried to take his penalty kick during the shootout against Real Madrid and they thus lost the opportunity of scoring a goal as in the video it was shown that there was refraction.
The match could have ended in a tie with a shootout at 2-2. But Real Madrid took the lead by 3-1 and won the match by 4-2 and have qualified for the quarterfinals and have kept their hopes alive of winning the title once again.
“I felt that he touched the ball twice and I told the referee. It's not easy to see that. It was a bit of bad luck for them there” Thibaut Courtois told broadcasters in the post-match presentation.
The on-field referee didn't see the double touch at the first time but the Madrid players grabbed his attention.
Carlo Ancelotti, who is Madrid's coach, reckoned that he too didn't see the double kick when they took the penalty, and in the replay, it showed that his left foot touched twice.
Diego Simeone, who is the coach of Atletico Madrid, revealed that he didn't see a double touch but wanted to ensure that if the VAR interfered it was due to it might have seen something.
It became challenging to just analyze from the pictures whether Ivarez's left foot, the one which slipped, touched the ball the first or the second time.
As per the rules, if a player had touched the ball once then they should not play the ball again till it has reached the other player. Whenever an infraction occurs in a game, then an indirect free kick is given to an opponent. During a shootout, this goal doesn't hold any relevance.
Conor Gallagher scored the first goal within 30 seconds and helped Atletico win by 1-0 after regulation and the scores were levelled at 2-2 after regulation. Madrid won the first match by 2-1 earlier this month.
Atletico Madrid, who has never won a top European tournament, suffered their fifth consecutive loss against Real Madrid.
They had lost two consecutive Champions League summit clashes to the same opponent way back in 2014 and 2016 and were eliminated from the knockout stages in 2015 and also lost in the 2017 semis.
“It hurts,” Jan Oblak, who is the goalkeeper of Atletico Madrid said. “We played a great match but unfortunately we were a bit unlucky. It's a shame. It hurts a lot” he added.
Simeone didn't pin the blame on the bad luck in elimination.
“I wouldn’t talk about luck. I would talk about feeling proud of the team that we have and about how we always compete. Madrid has always beaten us in the Champions League, but they have always suffered. I'm sure they'll always remember that” he concluded.