Valverde's late winner sinks ten-man AEK Athens
AEK Athens led twice against Real Madrid but lost 3-2 after Aboubakary Koita, their opening scorer, was sent off and Federico Valverde struck in stoppage time.
By Harvey Watkins,
Real Madrid won 3-2 at the Agia Sophia Stadium (OPAP Arena) on Wednesday, with Federico Valverde scoring in the 92nd minute. AEK Athens led twice in this Champions League Matchday 4 fixture. They were then reduced to ten men, and the winner came two minutes later. Aboubakary Koita opened the scoring and was later sent off, and those two moments framed a match that turned on its final quarter of an hour.
An early lead and a first-half reply
Koita put AEK Athens ahead in the 12th minute. The lead lasted 20 minutes. Jude Bellingham equalised in the 32nd, and there was no further scoring before half-time, so the sides went in level at 1-1.
On the scoreline alone, the first half was even. Each side scored once, and neither managed a second before the interval. That set up a second half in which the decisive passages all came late.
Three minutes in front
Stavro Pilo restored the AEK Athens lead in the 75th minute. It was the second time they had gone ahead against Real Madrid, and with a quarter of an hour left it put them in a strong position. It did not last. Kylian Mbappé equalised in the 78th minute, three minutes after Pilo's goal.
That sequence is the clearest feature of the match. AEK Athens scored twice against Real Madrid and held the advantage on both occasions for a combined 23 minutes. Each time, the reply came. The second equaliser came quickly enough that the home side barely had the lead long enough to protect it.
The dismissal and the winner
In the 90th minute Koita was shown a straight red card. The player who had given AEK Athens their first lead therefore left the field with the score at 2-2 and stoppage time to come.
Real Madrid needed two minutes to make the extra player count. Valverde scored in the 92nd minute, and that proved to be the final goal of the night.
What the result shows
From the 75th minute onwards there were three goals and a red card in 17 minutes. Three of the five goals and the only dismissal fell in that spell. Until then, the match had been settled at 1-1 for more than 40 minutes.
Real Madrid's three goals came from three different players: Bellingham, Mbappé and Valverde. They trailed twice and won anyway. Their equalisers came 20 and three minutes after they fell behind.
For AEK Athens, the positives are plain from the scoreline. Scoring twice against Real Madrid, and leading on two separate occasions, is not nothing. The difficulty was holding those leads, and the late dismissal left them a player short at the point the match was decided.
A single result supports only so much interpretation. The scoreline and the timing of the goals tell the story of how the lead changed hands. They say less about how the play itself went. What is clear is that the match stood level with two minutes of stoppage time played, and that Real Madrid, a man up, found the winner.