Match Analysis: Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid (Uefa Champions League Round of 16 First Leg)- a Tactical Dissection of the Madrid Based Outfits

Written by Paul Michael Ezeoha 

Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid faced off against each other in the Uefa Champions League Round of 16 first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu last week Tuesday's night. 

This fixture made it the 10th time that these two Madrid based clubs would encounter each other in the UCL. 

The home side were the first to open the score chat earlier on in the first half with a brilliant strike from Rodrygo Goes, thus taking his total goals in the UCL to a 25 goal milestone. 

Atletico Madrid on the other hand did eventually equalized in the 34th minute period, thanks to a magical strike from Julian Alvarez.

In the early period of the second half, the Moroccan international, Brahim Diaz, made it 2-1 for the home side with another brilliant strike of the night. 

In this way, Real Madrid narrowly emerged as victors in what was an almost equally competed fixture. 

This match analysis therefore unravels the in-possession and attacking tactics, and the  out-of possession and defensive tactics employed by both teams. 

 REAL MADRID'S LINE UP 

Real Madrid's boss, Carlo Ancelloti set his team in their traditional 4-3-3 formation on paper. This  formation is one that is well known for fostering ball retention and a colourful attacking style of play. 

He made two changes to the side that lost against Real Betis at the Estadio Benito Villamarin last week Saturday's evening: Raul Asencio takes the place of David Alaba at central back because of the Austrian's lack of consistency lately. Eduardo Carmavinga also replaces the Capitan, Luka Modric in midfield.  

Thibaut Courtois mounted the goal post, and  ahead of him to provide security was the back 4 consisting of Ferland Mendy at left back, the central back pair of Antony Rudiger and Raul Asencio, and the made shift right back, Federico Valverde who was the team's skipper for the match. 

The triad midfield setup include Tchouameni who started-for the second time in a row- at the holding midfield position, Eduardo Carmavinga and the inform Brahim Diaz positioned in advance positions in midfield. 

Up front, the forward trio consists of the left winger Vinicius jr , the right winger Rodrygo Goes and the striker Mbappe. 

 

Real Madrid's line up on paper

ATLETICO MADRID'S LINEUP 

Diego Simione(El Cholo) sticked with his idiosyncratic 4-4-2 formation on paper. Coming into this fixture alongside his players with a positive mindset owning to their triumph over Atletico Bilbao on Sunday, he also made two changes to the side that faced off against Bilbao:Jose Maria Gimenez in place of Le Normand at the central back,  and Julian Alvarez starting in place of Alexander Sorloth in the number 9 position. 

Los Rojiblancos' lineup goes as thus: 

Jan Oblak mounted between the sticks. 

Galan started in left back; the two central backs was Clement Lenglet and Jose Maria Gimenez; Marcos Llorente was positioned at right back. These four players formed the back line. 

The four man midfield line includes: the two holding midfield pairing of Barrios Rivas and Raul De Paul, the right winger Giuliano Simione, and the left winger Samuel Lino. 

Finally, Julian Alvarez and Antone Griezmann were the dual 9. 

Atletico Madrid's line up on paper 

REAL MADRID'S IN-POSSESSION STRUCTURE VS ATLETICO MADRID IN DEFENSIVE 

Although Real Madrid lined up in a 4-3-3 formation on paper, yet this shape did turn into 4-2-1-3 when they were in possession of the ball, with Carmavinga and Tchouameni forming a double pivot in the holding midfield, and Brahim Diaz playing as the number 10.

One constant tactical trend to take note of when in this shape, is the fluid nature of Brahim Diaz. 

He constantly drifted to the wider region of the pitch-  sometimes in the half space- to partner with Vinicius at the right wing and- in most cases- Ferland Mendy. 

                                  

Brahim Diaz's heat map revealing his average position during the game. Here, we can see that he operated in the wider region the most. (Photo credit: Sofascore.com).

By having Diaz operate in this position, Carlo Ancelloti intend to combine his technical abilities alongside that of Vinicius jr at this wider region of the pitch in order to break down Atletico's rigid defensive structure. 

So when they had the ball in this area, we did see a swift combination play involving Brahim Diaz, Vinicius jr and Mendy in most scenarios. 

There were several instances in the game where this tactics proved disastrous for Atletico Madrid. This is so because when Real Madrid did implement these swift passing combinations, Atleti found it quite challenging to remain compact as a defensive unit because they were tempted to try to close them down, and this efforts ended being futile in some cases as the pace Real Madrid's players was too much for them to catch up with. 

In this way, it led to several dangerous situations for Real Madrid. 

To begin with, Diaz's winning goal is one good example.  

In the scenario below, a third-man combination play involving Mendy, Brahim and Vini jr is visible:  Mendy plays a pass to Brahim while making a forward run; Brahim then plays a the ball to Vini who then finds Mendy ahead. Mendy further tables the pass for Diaz in Atletico's box 18. Diaz then razzle-dazzled Jose Maria Gimenez before placing it to the right bottom corner.  

Another instance is one of Vinicius' missed chances. 

In the scenario below, this quick combination play was executed by these same players in the right flank. Mendy plays the ball to Vini ,and Vini passes it immediately to Diaz close by. Diaz then back flicks a pass ahead for Vini to chase.  Vini gets to the ball and advances with it towards Atletico's box 18. He shoots, but it was blocked by one of the defenders.

Also, in several occasions, Real Madrid did look to go direct to their front players when in possession o the ball.  In fact, they had the most long balls in the game with a total of 62 compared to Atletico's 48. 

The rationale behind this pattern of play was basically to exploit the speed of these three front players(a pattern of play that we have seen them execute so many times this season) . 

So, we did see them play a lot of long balls from deeper regions of the pitch to these front three. 

This presented danger for Atletico's defenders as they weren't as fast as these players.

Below is a scenario of this pattern of play:

Valverde plays a long pass behind Atletico's defensive line for Rodrygo to chase. This eventually resulted in Real's first goal as Rodrygo's pace proved too much for the left fullback to catch up with. 

Also, another scenario is seen below: 

A long ball from Rodiger to Rodrygo led to another goal scoring opportunity for Real Madrid, only that this time Rodrygo couldn't make good use of it. 

The 4-4-2 formation when employed in the defensive phase makes the team become compact. This is because- as Carlo Ancelloti once said- the 4-4-2 shape perfectly fits into the football Field's rectangular shape, thus it ensures that tangible breadth and length of the field is covered by the team during defensive action. This therefore makes it quite hard for the opponents to advance play into the final third. 

Because of this benefit, a lot of top teams in Europe and around the world have come to prefere it. 

Atletico Madrid are not exempted from those clubs, as they did maintain their default 4-4-2 formation during the defensive phase for most period of the match. 

Atletico Madrid in their 4-4-2 defensive shape. 

But this shape did change into a 5-2-3 formation at some point in the game.

This was an intentional tactical modification made by Diego Simeone because he aim to even things up against Real Madrid's wingers whose really wide positioning on the pitch became threatening for Atletico's defenders, thus their shape was stretched a lot during several occasions and which eventually resulted in loopholes. 

The image below shows Atletico Madrid in their 5-2-3 defensive shape. 

ATLETICO'S IN-POSSESSION STRUCTURE VS REAL MADRID IN DEFENSE

With the ball, Atletico Madrid's shape was 3-1-4-2 for most occasion in the game. 

In this shape, Llorente functioned more as the right central back because of his agility and strength needed to curtail Real Madrid's counter attacks. 

Lodi inverted into the advanced midfielder position. De Paul also operated in this advanced role in the midfield, shifting away from his usual holding midfielder role. 

Giuliano Simeone played more as a right winger, and Galan retained  his position as the left wingback. 

It could be said that Someone reason for opting for a back three was basically to have the superiority in number against Real's front two at the first phase of build up play. 

Here, Atletico build up play with a back three(the sweeper defender is outside of view in the scenario) making it easy to bypass Real Madrid's front two. 

Furthermore, when Atletico Madrid did advance play to Real Madrid's half, they committed six players to the attack: the wingers, two attacking midfielders and the double number 9. 

With this ample number of players upfront, Real Madrid came under great challenge to defend against them. 

They were forced into defending very deep inorder to cover these Atletico's forward players. 

In the scenarios below, we see how Atletico Madrid's attacking shape presented them with several options up front, thus they were better able to manipulate Real Madrid's defensive shape through making off the ball runs and short passes amongst themselves to then advanced play to Real 's box 18.

Mendy is pinned by the Atletico's winger Simeone. This therefore left gap in Real's defense. De Paul spots ths gap and runs into it in anticipation for a forward pass from Simeone who has just received the ball from the holding midfielder Rivas.

De Paul's run takes Real Madrid's midfield Carmavinga away from his position, thus creating space for Simeone to play the ball to Griezmann. 

He passes to Griezmann. Griezmann receives the ball and dribbles with it towards Real Madrid's goal. He shoots but Courtois makes an outstanding save. 

 

Also, this potent nature of Atletico's attacking structure is seen in events that led to Alvarez's goal. 

Here, Galan occupies Valverde in the right flank thereby creating space in the defense. 

On the other hand, Griezmann pins Real's two defenders. This meant that he has taken away enough attention from his striking partner, thus giving Alvarez the freedom to attack the space behind Valverde without much challenge from the defenders(much part of this freedom comes because Raul Asencio who is close by him didn't decides not to track him as he does not want to risk leaving that crucial zone of the pitch unmarked). 

Carmavinga was the who the baton fell upon to track Alvarez. 

His attempt to close him down became futile as Alvarez got to the ball before him. 

With the ball, Alvarez dribbled past Carmavinga to curl a shot behind Courtois' reach into the post. 

Conversely, Real Madrid defended in their usual 4-4-2 shape. 

Rodrygo tucked into the right midfielder position. Diaz also fell back to the midfield to occupy the left midfielder position. 

Carmavinga and Tchouameni maintained their holding midfield position.

Vinicius then takes an inward position higher up, thereby forming a partnership with Mbappe in the number 9 position. 

In this shape, Real Madrid endeavored to remain compact as a unit in the center of the pitch.  

They limited the space between the defensive and midfield lines in order to prevent Atletico Madrid players from receiving the ball in this area, as this could lead to dangerous situations. 

With this, Atletico were forced to play through the flanks for most of the game. 

Real Madrid's 4-4-2 defensive shape. 

CONCLUSION 

                         

It is safe to say that the tie presented quite an even performance by both teams. 

Although they employed dissimilar structure when in possession of the ball, yet they shared similarities in their defensive structure.  

With this victory, Los Blancos would have to put in much more hard work to at least get a draw or better still a victory, when they take a bus trip to San Blas, Canillejas district in the northeast area of Madrid on the 12th of March 2025 for the second leg fixture.