by Episodes II and III will have to be very, very special if the Madrid Trilogy wants to end as well as it began. Not content with facing each other three times in three competitions and three weeks, Atlético and Real decided to play an extra half hour just for fun, scoring three goals each to take the sixth consecutive derby tie to extra time. There, a wild and wonderful match finally ended when Jan Oblak, the Atlético goalkeeper, who was on a last roll of the dice trailing 4-3, found himself desperately chasing Brahim Díaz who broke clear and doubled the ball into the empty goal. in the 121st minute to send his teammates onto the pitch and into the final of the Spanish Super Cup.
It was a fitting end to a frenetic occasion: a game with plenty of entertainment and eight goals, two of which were really magnificent and two of which were really very silly. Most weren’t exactly scored by the usual suspects. Antoine Griezmann did his best to surpass Luis Aragonés as Atlético’s all-time leading scorer, of course, but not many would have predicted the goals from Mario Hermoso, Toni Rüdiger, Ferland Mendy and Dani Carvajal, all defenders. Or own goals from Kepa Arrizabalaga and Stefan Savic, the latter finally giving Real an advantage in extra time that would see them through. Fair.
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In the end, the first meeting between these two teams, which will face each other in the Copa del Rey next week and the League at the beginning of February, had 30 shots and went from 1-0 against Atlético to 2-1 against Real, from 3-2 Atlético against 5-3 Real. It wasn’t definitively over until the end, when Díaz, who came on as a substitute, was there with his shirt off and everyone was trying to figure out what had happened. The answer was a little of everything, except defending.
By the end everyone was exhausted, but for much of the match the technique had been exceptional, although it was helped by the feeling that both teams wanted to enjoy it more than will probably be the case with the next two in Spain.
It showed from the beginning, and especially in the play that led to the first goal: built in depth in one part and finished in the other, it went from Koke to the exceptional Rodrigo de Paul, to Griezmann and then to Samuel Lino. whose curl was deflected by Kepa. In the corner taken by Griezmann, Hermoso stood alone and put Atlético ahead with a header. When Real cornered Atlético shortly after, he did it again, this time going from his own left corner to Real’s left post, where Marcos Llorente’s ball found Álvaro Morata and his shot crashed into the side netting. .
Real Madrid were struggling to control those early phases, but Atlético knew all about their refusal to fold and soon took the lead. Jude Bellingham sent a shot wide and, from the corner, Rüdiger headed in a goal that was a virtual copy of that Moment from the European Cup final in Lisbon, a decade ago but always present. The recipient was even the same man: Luka Modric.
It was the second consecutive game that Rüdiger scored and the third consecutive Real Madrid goal after a header from a corner kick, but the streak did not last long. If that sounds routine, it certainly wasn’t: a cleverly worked move ended with a fine flick of Mendy’s ankle to put his team ahead. “This is how Madrid wins,” chanted the crowd in Riyadh, where Real Madrid is practically the local team, 5,000 kilometers away. But it is not what is most expected from the French side.
It was a beautiful goal, worthy of what was unfolding (what the match lacked in tension it made up for in technique) and what followed was even better. Griezmann confused Aurélien Tchouaméni, Rüdiger and, above all, Modric with an extraordinary turn of his heel that magically made a space appear that was not there a second before. Entering it, he shot with his right foot past Kepa from the edge of the area, recovering the ball from the net and handing it to Diego Simeone to guard. After all, this was the ball with which he had just scored his 164th goal with Atlético (more than anyone else in history) and tied the semi-final.
Shortly after came another moment of fantasy when, with a movement of weight and feet as fast as the Frenchman’s, Rodrygo left José María Giménez on the ground. Oblak was also falling the other way, but somehow saved with his legs, gratefully grabbing the ball because it looked like he was going to spin over the line. It was the fourteenth shot of a very fun first half, nine of them on goal, and when the second began, Lino fired another slightly past the post. Then, set free by a quick free kick from Vinícius, Carvajal probably should have scored at the other end only for Oblak to block his close-range volley.
By then, the volume had turned up: Toni Kroos, who had said that Saudi Arabia’s human rights record was one of the reasons he would never move to the country, was booed every time he received the ball.
The drama would also increase, even if the game had slowed down. Atlético took the lead again with 12 minutes remaining with a strange and comical goal. Kepa jumped over Morata to try to finish off a cross, but all he managed to do was deflect it towards Rüdiger’s leg and back into his goal. The goalkeeper complained that he had been fouled, but it was the reaction of an embarrassed man clutching at a straw, and he couldn’t hold on to it either.
However, he was rescued. With six minutes left, Vinícius went up from the left and entered the area. Oblak saved his first shot, Savic blocked Bellingham’s next, Hermoso cleared Bellingham’s second off the line but, rushing in, Carvajal crashed the ball to make it 3-3. Brahim almost scored the winning goal in the 91st minute, beating Hermoso with a magnificent pass, but his shot went wide and caused another derby in extra time, where a dummy from Ángel Correa caused a similar moment for the Athletic.
Atlético seemed exhausted and could only try, and fail, to hold on. The way it happened was cruel and a bit silly, Savic’s interception bounced off his own goalkeeper and into the net with four minutes left and penalties looming. Griezmann then leaned slightly beyond the post. When the last minute passed and Atlético was chasing, so was Oblak. Forced to retreat and chase, he saw Brahim Díaz escape and also his last chance.
