Match date: 22 April 2015

Perhaps on another day, Real Madrid would have been coming into this match with a huge lead, but instead, Atletico’s goalkeeper, Jan Oblak, kept his side in the tie and give his side a huge chance of advancing.

Carlo Ancelotti was without a number of players that started the first leg with Modric, Benzema, Bale, and Marcelo all missing. In their place, Ancelotti brought in Javier Hernandez, who has been poor during his time at Real Madrid, Isco, Coentrão, and Pepe. The Italian boss opted for a 4-4-2ish system rather than his usual 4-3-3.

Simeone made three changes to his side with Jesus Gamez being restored to left back ahead of Siqueira. Suarez and Gabi made way, having both started in the previous leg, with Saul and Tiago into the side.

Real Madrid in Control, 4-4-2ish

As it was in the first match, Real Madrid controlled the game for long periods and looked comfortable in a 4-4-2 with Kroos and Ramos in the midfield. While Real Madrid were able to maintain control of the ball for large periods, they weren’t able to penetrate often. Much of their play was in the wide areas as Atletico Madrid played very narrow (to be expected) so Kroos was forced to look to the wide areas to create anything. Kroos had time on the ball and has the ability to pick out passes into players between the lines if the space is there, but with Atletico’s narrow play and the likes of Tiago, in particular, back in the side, it made it difficult to play through. The task was made even harder by the positioning of Mandzukic and Griezmann, with both forwards getting behind the ball as well as Kroos, Ramos, and the Real Madrid centre backs. Below is a good example of the packed middle of the field, with Kroos’ only option being a pass out wide to Carvajal.

Ronaldo’s movement into the wide areas was crucial to Real Madrid’s play going forward. It was not necessarily what allowed Real Madrid to create chances, which were few, but it gave the likes of Kroos a consistent out ball. Ronaldo’s movement was mostly horizontal, while Javier Hernandez’s was more vertical and penetrative, although the Mexican was mostly wasteful with his chances, although his movement typically brought him outside of the posts as he looked to run into the channels on the outside of the Atletico centre backs.

One of the noticeable things about Ronaldo’s movement was how the rest of the team reacted to it. Isco and James, who are both mostly central players were on the outsides of Real Madrid’s midfield four, but when Ronaldo moved to one side, Real Madrid looked more like a 4-3-3 as the outside midfielder on the side Ronaldo was on would come inside and the opposite sided player would push further forward. Below is a good example of this as Ronaldo moved to Isco’s side, the latter moved inside (near arrow) and James moved up to be alongside Hernandez (far arrow).

So while on paper, Real Madrid were in a 4-4-2, they moved from that to 4-3-3ish/4-2-2-2ish. Unfortunately for Real Madrid, it was not movement that particularly bothered Atletico Madrid as they managed to contain the home side, aside from Hernandez’s movement, but that was only when Real Madrid managed to get into the final third, which was difficult.

The inclusion of Ramos in midfield by Ancelotti was a reasonable one. The Spaniard has struggled in a midfield role in the past, but that has typically been against Barcelona when he was given the responsibility to contain Messi or break up Barcelona’s quick midfield play. Against Atletico Madrid, it made more sense as he is combative and would help break up Atletico’s quick breaks well and better than Kroos and someone like Illarramendi would have been able to. Ramos played on the centre right side of the midfield, which allowed Carvajal to get forward knowing that breaks to his side would be covered well by Ramos. This became more important when Simeone slightly changed his team’s shape from a 4-4-2 to a 4-4-1-1 with Saul moving inside and Griezmann moving to the left. This meant the Frenchman was up against Carvajal and that, if they were able to break, Griezmann would have the space behind Carvajal to run into (if Ramos were not there).

Atletico Struggle to Get Out, Real’s Pressing

With Mandzukic and Griezmann so deep when Real Madrid had the ball, it made it very hard for Atletico Madrid to work the ball up the field when they won possession. Essentially Atletico Madrid’s two main outlets had four players already between them and Casillas with Pepe and Varane relatively free and Griezmann and Mandzukic defending behind Ramos and Kroos.

With Atletico Madrid lacking a consistent outlet, Real Madrid were able to press their rivals high up the pitch and with someone like Ramos in midfield, the home side had a genuine ball winner in the centre of the pitch which, again, allow them to squeeze the pitch and win the ball back quickly.

A lot of the struggles for Atletico were down to Simeone. As mentioned above, he changed his side from a 4-4-2 to a 4-4-1-1 with Griezmann moving into a wide left position meaning that Mandzukic was all alone up top. The Croatian does a fantastic job holding up the ball and is a good goalscorer, but he is not the most mobile player and doesn’t have the ability to dribble at players which meant that, for a counter attacking team, his presence as the sole outlet was ineffective. With no real outlet and with their early, quick passes being cut out early, Atletico Madrid struggled to get forward and create chance. Simeone’s side is one that thrives on quick, efficient counter attacks and when the (tougher-type) opposition is able to starve out these opportunities, Simeone’s side struggle to create chances from patient and intricate play around the opposition’s penalty area.

Red Card, Changes

Turan was sent off in the 76th minute for a second yellow card after a high boot on Ramos. At this point, Simeone had put on Gabi to Saul and Raul Garcia for Greizmann and waited another ten minutes to take off Tiago for Gimenez, but it really did not matter for the sake of the game or the tie. Real Madrid had been on top for just about all of the two matches up until that point and had three good chances in the quarter hour before Turan’s sending off.

Atletico were not really any more defensive than they had been for most of the match, despite being a man down. However, Ronaldo’s movement into the wide area finally dragged Atletico’s centre backs out of position. At this point, Atletico had three centre backs with Godin in the middle of Gimenez and Miranda and Juanfran and Gamez as wing backs. In the build up to the goal, Gamez stepped to Carvajal meaning that Miranda had to move out of the centre to close down Ronaldo and Godin got dragged out of the middle by stepping to James, who played a one-two with Ronaldo. Hernandez had to stand on his spot and wait for Ronaldo to pass him the ball before the much maligned striker passed the ball into the open goal.

Conclusion

Atletico had not lost to Real Madrid in six games since their loss in the final of last year’s Champions League, but it was again Real Madrid that they fell to in the continental competition. Real Madrid deserved the result. They dominated both legs of the tie and would have had a comfortable lead from the first leg had it not been for Oblak.

Atletico Madrid struggled to play both sides of their game. They were relatively comfortable in their defensive work, aside from a few runs from Hernandez that opened them up, but they found it very difficult to get out of deep positions as they had no forward outlet.