Real Madrid stay alive in Champions League after penalty shoot-out win

Real Madrid won a dramatic, controversial penalty shoot-out 4-2 to beat rivals Atletico Madrid and continue the defence of their Champions League crown.

Julian Alvarez had fired his spot-kick, Atletico’s second, into the roof of the net but then saw it disallowed by VAR after slipping during his run-up and touching the ball twice.

After former Real player Marcos Llorente saw his spot-kick cannon back off the crossbar, Antonio Rudiger stepped up to take the decisive kick and beat Jan Oblak despite the goalkeeper going the right way and getting a big hand to the ball.

Conor Gallagher had fired Atletico in front just 27 seconds into the match and, after Vinicius Junior missed a penalty, it stayed 1-0 for another 119 minutes to send it to spot-kicks with the tie 2-2 on aggregate.

For pretty much the entire night Real Madrid were below par, but somehow they found a way to stay alive as they set up a quarter-final against Arsenal.

The drama started seconds in with a poor clearance from Raul Asencio, picked off by Antoine Griezmann and worked wide to Rodrigo De Paul. Giuliano Simeone could not turn in the cross but it sat up to leave Gallagher with an easy task to prod home.

The early goal allowed Atletico to sit back and frustrate Real Madrid, who struggled to get a sight of Oblak’s goal, and the hosts had most of the few chances there were in a tight first half.

Alvarez’s ambitious effort from outside the box was always going wide but he did test Thibaut Courtois with a driven effort in the 25th minute, palmed away by the Real goalkeeper.

The visitors did not have a real sight of goal until the 28th minute but Rodrygo’s shot was tame, and Atletico stayed on the front foot as Courtois had to block Griezmann’s cross with Atletico’s forwards queuing up before Clement Lenglet headed wide from a corner soon after.

Courtois had to be alert to block Alvarez’s close-range effort in the 39th minute and the Argentinian forced another save from the Belgian seconds into the second half with a shot from outside the box.

Real were slower to get going. In the 56th minute it took a superb tackle from Jose Maria Gimenez to prevent Jude Bellingham turning in Rodrygo’s low cross, but the more eye-opening stuff was coming at the other end where more than once mistakes from Ferland Mendy offered Atleti space on the counter.

There could and should have been a turning point 20 minutes from time. Given a rare chance to hit Atleti on the counter, Bellingham gave Kylian Mbappe space to run at goal, with Lenglet hauling him down in the box.

But given a golden opportunity, Vinicius blazed his penalty high and wide.

Atleti substitute Angel Correa almost scored a spectacular winner in the last minute of the 90 as he spun before firing over, but instead it was extra-time.

Tension only grew during the extra 30 minutes, particularly in the second period as Real started to show the urgency that had been missing for so much of the night, but it took penalties to separate them.