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MOTD- Atletico Madrid 2-2 Real Madrid

By on March 2, 2014

Atletico Madrid did the the most they could have possibly done.  Diego Simeone’s side did an incredible job of silencing Gareth Bale, and for the most part Cristiano Ronaldo, but in the end it was impossible for the home side to keep their main league and crosstown rivals Real Madrid totally silent in the Madrid Derby on Atletico soil.  One early and one late goal from Real sealed them a valuable point, but it still benefits Barcelona, who remain within a single point away from Real on the top of the table, more than either Atletico or Real.

While the result wasn’t what each side would have hoped for, it didn’t take anything away from a tense, heated match at the Vicente Calderon.  Referee Carlos Deglado had hardly blown the opening whistle before the action started, with Diego Godin heading the ball behind for a Real corner just around nintey seconds into the match.  It may have seemed perfectly normal to Atletico, but the result was not.  Angel di Maria played it out to Luka Modric on a short corner from the right for the latter to lay it back to Di Maria, who curled a superb cross in towards the back post, where Karim Benzema waited to tap it into the bottom corner.  And, just like that, the visitors were up.

But Atletico certainly didn’t let the match run away from them.  Pushing forward, the home side should have perhaps been awarded a penalty eleven minutes in when Sergio Ramos slightly clipped Diego Costa on the left side of the box, but the referee judged it a dive, just animating the ferocity of the derby further.  Juanfran went in hard on a meaty challenge to bring Ronaldo down before Raul Garcia forced Pepe to receive some treatment, but soon the match was back to it’s niceties in brilliant attacking play.

Benzema nearly placed a controlled volley from Fabio Coentrao’s stunning diagonal ball into the bottom corner from fifteen yards, but Thibaut Courtois palmed it wide, to keep his side in the match.  That would prove a vital point of the match as only three minutes later in the twenty-seventh minute Atletico themselves scored to make it all square once again.  Turan poked a pass through to Koke on the right side of the box and the midfielder sliced a low effort past Diego Lopez into the bottom corner of the far side of goal from twelve yards out.  The goal gave Atletico the momentum to keep pushing forward, making another goal look like a sure thing, and sure enough, Atleti turned the match on it’s head with a second in the forty-fifth minute.  Yet the goal still came out of nowhere, with Gabi just suddenly deciding to have a go from a full thirty-five yards out and slamming an almighty effort right past Lopez into the back of the net.

But the second half didn’t treat Atletico at all the same.  Benzema volleyed Modric’s cross from the right narrowly wide in the sixty-second minute, five minutes before Bale forced Courtois into some bother to push away a neat flicked header on target from twelve yards out.  Although Turan was unlucky to see Lopez tip his header from a preposterous angle on the left of goal wide Real still pressured Atletico, with Ronaldo powering a towering header inches wide of the far post in the seventy-fourth minute.  Finally, Real got their equalizer when Daniel Carvajal’s low cut-back from the right made it’s way to Ronaldo around fifteen yards out.  Ronaldo smacked a low volley past Courtois into the bottom corner, but it was too late to leave Real time to grab a winner, and it ended with a scoreline worthy of the match at 2-2.
Man of the Match: Arda Turan

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.