Mission Impossible for Atletico Madrid

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The fourth and final match of the 2016/17 Champions League semi-finals takes place on Wednesday night in Madrid.  This time it is the turn of Atletico Madrid, to play host to their neighbours, Real Madrid.

Atletico Madrid, well renowned for their defence qualities, will be very disappointed to come into this match with a three-goal deficit to overturn.  It is not very often you see Atletico Madrid taken apart in the way they were against Real Madrid in the first leg and they must try and recover from a 3-0 defeat.

The match could not have panned out any better than it did for Zinedine Zidane.  Real Madrid got the early goal, which settled both the players and the fans.  From then on, Atletico Madrid were forced to chase the game and they never looked well equipped to do that.

Real Madrid caught them twice in the second half, with the third goal being the potential killer blow, coming with just 10 minutes of the game remaining.

Atletico Madrid recovered from the defeat by beating Eibar 1-0 at the Vicente Calderon in La Liga on the weekend.  Simeone opted to field a strong starting XI, despite this second leg coming around so quickly and perhaps gives an indication he knows the tie is up.

However, Atletico Madrid have been strong at home this season, with trends showing they have lost only three matches in La Liga.  Their Champions League home form is very impressive and Atletico are unbeaten in their last ten games at the Vicente Calderon.  Atletico have lost only one of their previous twenty-two home Champions League matches.

Four of those twenty-two games have seen Atletico win by a margin which would be good enough to see them make the final but those games were against Astana, Olympiakos, Malmo and Austria Vienna.  Hardly the same calibre of opposition they will be facing on Wednesday night.

Despite winning the first leg 3-0, Zidane opted to rest several of his first team regulars at Granada on the weekend.  It didn’t matter as Real Madrid ran out 4-0 winners and remain well placed to win La Liga this season.

Real Madrid are unbeaten in their last fifteen Champions League matches, with their last defeat coming at Wolfsburg last season.  Los Blancos have won their last three away games in the competition, including a good 2-1 win at Bayern Munich.  You must go back to March 2009 to find the last time Real Madrid lost by a margin which would see them eliminated from the competition and that was 4-0 at Liverpool in 2009.

Unfortunately for Atletico Madrid, they will have to do without Juanfran, Sime Vrsaljko and Jose Gimenez, meaning Lucas Hernandez may have to start again at right-back.  Daniel Carvajal is out for the remainder of the season, so Zidane will have to play either Danilo or Nacho at right-back.  Pepe and Gareth Bale are also out for the away team.

Simeone will be stirring memories of Atletico Madrid’s 4-0 win over Real Madrid in February 2015.  However, it would take one of the biggest collapses in the history of the Champions League, for Real Madrid to lose the tie from here.  Real Madrid are a team who always score and if they find the back of the net in his match, which is likely, Atletico Madrid will need 5 goals to win.  That’s not going to happen and Real Madrid could easily come away with a win in both legs.