Atletico hold Real in Madrid derby with last gasp Llorente header

Marcos Llorente’s header in stoppage time meant Atletico Madrid held cross-city rivals Real Madrid 1-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday evening.

Brahim Diaz gave the hosts the opening goal in the first half, and it looked like it would be enough to secure three points for the league leaders, but Llorente’s header meant Diego Simeone’s side will travel back home with a point from a feisty encounter.

The hosts came into the encounter on the back of six consecutive wins in the league, while Atletico, to their credit, hadn’t been on the wrong side of the scoreline in their last eight meetings against Madrid opposition.

Real started the better of the two sides testing Jan Oblak in goal inside the first five minutes. Much against the run of play, Antoine Griezmann played in Alvaro Morata but the latter saw his effort well saved by Andriy Lunin in the Real goal.

Marcos Llorente scored a late equalizer for Atletico

Real take the lead

Twenty minutes in and the hosts were ahead, despite Atletico’s repeated calls for offside. Brahim Diaz started a move to find Jude Bellingham who played in Lucas Vazquez, but the latter’s effort was well prodded out by Koke.

However, the ball fell kindly for Diaz who slotted in past Oblak to give his side the lead on the day as VAR withheld the on-field goal decision.

Three minutes later, Lunin made a terrific save to deny Axel Witsel from equalizing from a header that was destined for the right top corner.

Just seconds later Stefan Savic failed to score from close range as Real survived. From then on, Real took the initiative and created several opportunities to extend their lead but failed to come with the killer ball in the final third.

Atletico have a goal disallowed using VAR

Three minutes into the second half, Savic scored with his head, in a similar fashion build-up from the first half from Griezmann’s cross.

However, VAR intervened to rule the goal out with Saul being in front…

Source link : https://worldsoccertalk.com/news/atletico-hold-real-in-madrid-derby-with-last-gasp-llorente-header-20240204-WST-487605.html

Author : Tamojit Chakraborty

Publish date : 2024-02-04 23:07:18

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