It was a night full of passion, resilience, drama, entertainment, and contest on Sunday as Real Madrid was forced to a 1-1 draw in their first 2024/2025 La liga Season match with Atletico Madrid.
Playing at home gave Atletico Madrid solid confidence and the derby was played with fierce rivalry.
After yesterday’s game, Real Madrid now boasts of a 116 wins and 62 draws against Atletico Madrid.
During the heat of the match, crowds at the Estadio Civitas Metropolitano were very much in support, cheering and bringing fierce conduct to mete out fear for Real Madrid and its supporters. The first half of the game ended in a goalless draw and football legend Luka Modric was booked on a yellow, making it the only card shown throughout the whole of halftime.
The second half kicked off and Brazilian international Eder Militao netted the first goal with a powerful strike for the Galacticos in the 64th minute of the game courtesy of an assist from his fellow teammate and countryman Vinicius Jr. Three other yellow cards were given to Robin Le Normand, former Chelsea man Conor Gallagher, former Man City man Juan Alvarez.
Ugly Moments of the Game: As the derby went down, ugly acts were visibly carried out by fans of Atletico Madrid. Belgian international Thibaut Courtois had different objects thrown at him while on duty at the goalpost.
Man of the Match Award: After the retirement of Tony Kroos, Real Madrid had to fix players like Camavinga and Federico Valverde to take absolute charge of the Midfield. Valverde has been doing just fine when it comes to doing the super work on the field of play. The Uruguayan central midfielder was born on July 22nd, 1998 in Montevideo Uruguay, and moved to Madrid when he was 18 years of age from Uruguayan club Penarol for a reported fee of 5 million Euros. He played for the youth team of Real Madrid and in 2017 coach Zinedine Zidane featured him in a friendly match since then his skills lifted him and saw him play alongside Luka Modric and Casimero. His ability to control the midfield yesterday earned him the MOM Award.
The Dramatic Moment: As the game approached stoppage time, Atletico solidified their attack, and the forward-mounted unusual pressure made the moment dramatic. A fine stop from Courtois denied Lino a scoring chance. Six minutes into injury time, Angel Correa got a goal for Atletico that was initially ruled out as offside, but after rigorous checks from the Video Assistant Referee, the offside decision was overturned and the goal was awarded to make it 1-1.
In the final minute of the match, Marcos Llorente was shown a straight by the referee for a ridiculous challenge. What a game it was!
Statistics show that Barcelona who were humiliated on Saturday by Osasuna still tops the Laliga table with 21 points, Real Madrid is 2nd with 18 points, Atletico Madrid is 3rd with 16 points, Atletico Bilbao, Mallorca, Villareal, and Osasuna all have 14 points. Still, according to the number of matches played, and goal differences the positionings differ. Atletico are 4th, Mallorca 5th, Villareal 6th, and Osasuna 7th.
