Madrid – in the first part, like Tottenham Hotspur burst and Atletico Madrid Happily taken advantage of, there was a feeling of disbelief in the Metropolitano. Even the most optimistic Atlético fan wouldn’t have dreamed of it: 1-0 up after six minutes. Leading 2-0 after 14 minutes. Leading 3-0 after 15 minutes. Leading 4-0 after 22 minutes.
Atlético has had some good results at home this season. they beat real Madrid 5-2 in the derby in September, and they lost barcelona 4-0 here last month copa del rey. but this is uefa champions leagueIn the last-16 match against Premier League The opposition: A Spurs team that – inexplicably, in retrospect – finished fourth in the league stage.
And here Atlético, taking advantage of one mistake after another, were clearly putting the tie to bed before it was even over. 5-2 win.
Metropolitano fans didn’t know what to make of it. When Tottenham’s helpless starting goalkeeper, Antonin KinskiWas removed by coach Igor Tudor after being committed after only 17 minutes shocking unexpected errors To two of Atlético’s opening three goals, the crowd reaction was not what you might expect.
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There were no jeers from the home fans, no desire to stick the boot. Instead, there were some supportive cheers, and even a few whistles for him when the replacement was announced. It was a response of sympathy and empathy, an example of how terrible it must have been for Kinski, who received no sympathy from Tudor at all, while the keeper strode down the touchline without his head bowed.
For Spurs, this attention-grabbing result may not amount to much, even if it felt like it in the first half. There is still the scary possibility of relegation from the Premier League, with Tudor admitting before the match that survival is his team’s “number one goal”. “[The Champions League] It’s something extra,” he said. On the evidence of this first phase, it won’t be anything extra for very long.
Metropolitano has painful memories of his 2-0 defeat to Tottenham liverpool In the 2019 Champions League Final. That defeat, 90 minutes away from what was to be the best night in the club’s history, might have hurt more, but Tuesday’s result hurt in a different way: the pain of an embarrassing first half, the feeling that all of Europe was watching, wide-eyed, and thinking: what the hell is going on there?
On the contrary, this stadium has been Atletico’s fortress this season. In 21 home games between LaLiga, the Champions League and the Copa del Rey, Diego Simeone’s side won 18, drew one and lost two.
Their form away from home is a different thing altogether – eight wins, seven draws and seven defeats – and so their chances of progressing to the Champions League knockout stage were always dependent on their ability to close out ties on home ground, putting them beyond the reach of their opponents, before the uncertainty of the away stage.
At Tottenham, he found willing partners. In the sixth minute, Kinski slipped while trying to play the ball out from behind and gifted it away. Ademola Lookman. found lookman Julian Alvarez,who gave it Marcos LlorenteWho calmly made it 1-0.
Kinski’s mistake for the third goal was even more slapdash, trying to move quickly on a first-time backpass, and only succeeding in putting the ball straight into the path of Álvarez, who could not miss. That was the goalkeeper’s last intervention of the game, which Tudor took back immediately afterwards.
If there was any disappointment for Atletico that night – that was exemplified by Simeone’s angry, jumpy reaction pedro porroA goal in the 26th minute made it 4–1 – that is, at 5–2, the tie has certainly not ended comprehensively.
Atletico have come close to collapsing under pressure away from home in recent days.
A 4-0 win over Barcelona in the Copa del Rey semi-finals was followed by a 3-0 defeat in the second leg last week, in which Barca came very close to equalising. It’s a result that could provide Tottenham with little comfort, and will certainly be studied by the Tudors’ coaching staff ahead of next week’s second leg in north London.
“The two goals were embarrassing,” antoine griezmann Said after the game. “We have to fix what we did in Barcelona, so we don’t repeat it again.”
The truth is that the chances of recurrence seem low. Barcelona believed they could turn that tie around, and they almost did. Tottenham, in their hearts, will not share that belief. By the full-time whistle on Tuesday, the away end of the Metropolitano was almost empty as Spurs players moved forward to clap the few remaining fans behind. They too did not believe it.
