Atletico Madrid bombarded Juventus in the second half to force a 2 – 0 win in the Champions League round of 16 in Madrid.
The match took place in the Wanda Metropolitano, the home of Atletico Madrid. The same stadium will also host the final on the first of June.
It was a game between two similar teams who are both desperate to finally win the Champions League. Both Atletico Madrid and Juventus has reached the final twice in the last five years, only to finish runners up.
Both teams have also lost the final to Real Madrid, with Atletico painfully losing to them twice, in 2014 and 2016. Juventus lost to Barcelona 3 – 1 in 2015 and then 4 – 1 to Real Madrid in 2017.
As well as that, it was a match between the two most defensive teams in Europe. Both teams are outstanding defensively, and both boast two of the all time great central defensive pairings.
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Jose Gimenez and Diego Godin anchored the defense for Atletico, with Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci at the back for Juventus.
As it turned out, Atletico’s central defence won them the game, although not in the way you would have expected.
Both Atletico center backs scored from set piece scrambles in a 5 minute period that swung the tie in their favour.
In the 78th minute, Alvaro Morata won a header from a corner. Bonucci failed to clear, and Gimenez was there to finish from close range.
In the 83rd minute, an almost identical situation saw the ball fall to Diego Godin on the right hand side of the 6 yard box. He finished smartly, via a deflection off Cristiano Ronaldo, to seal the game for Atletico.
This game also saw good arguments for and against the controversial VAR system. In the first half, the referee awarded a penalty for a foul on Diego Costa. After VAR review, the decision was correctly changed to a free kick just outside the box.
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Then in the second, Morata thought he had headed Atletico into a 1 – 0 lead. However, VAR harshly ruled that he had has hands all over Chiellini. It was a harsh disallowance, and had Atletico not gone on to win the game, they could rightly feel aggrieved.
The two sides meet in Turin for the second leg on the 12th of March. Atletico are 4/1 to win, while Juve are 4/6.
