MADRID — Ten-man Atletico Madrid dealt a blow to Real Madrid’s LaLiga title hopes when they held the defending champions to a 1-1 draw at their Santiago Bernabeu stadium on Saturday.
Real are second in the league standings on 52 points, seven behind leaders Barcelona who face lowly Almeria on Sunday and could extend their lead to 10 points with a win. Atletico are fourth on 42 points.
“I see (winning) the league as a very difficult task. It was before today’s game and now it’s got even tougher,” Real manager Carlo Ancelotti told DAZN.
“Today we lacked a bit of mental freshness, more than physical. Especially when they were down to 10 men, we allowed them to score and struggled to reposition ourselves.
The match started slowly on a freezing afternoon, with light snow falling on the Spanish capital and Real Madrid dominating play but unable to turn their superiority into scoring opportunities.
Diego Simeone, who equaled Luis Aragones as the manager with the most games in the history of Atletico in all competitions (612), had to make an early substitution when left fullback Reinildo Mandava was carried off on a stretcher with a left knee injury.
The club later said in a statement that the Mozambique defender had torn a ligament while Mr. Simeone said he would miss the rest of the season.
Karim Benzema, Vinicius, Jr. and Marco Asensio were erratic up front and could not find a way to break the deadlock as Atletico held fast with a five-man defense, with substitute Jose Maria Gimenez coming on as third centre-back.
After substitute Angel Correa got a straight red card in the 64th minute for an elbow to the chest of defender Antonio Ruediger, Real still struggled to create chances.
Atletico ended up taking the lead when Mr. Gimenez scored with a header from an Antoine Griezmann free kick in the 78th minute.
The last time Atletico Madrid scored in a LaLiga match at Santiago Bernabeu was in April 2018, when Griezmann scored in a 1-1 draw.
The goal woke up Real and their 18-year-old forward Alvaro Rodriguez leveled the match seven minutes later with a clever header in traffic from a Luka Modric corner. — Reuters
