Plenty of bad blood, diving and yellow cards, but also one decisive winner in the first leg of the Copa Del Rey semifinal between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, with Los Blancos claiming a 3-0 that doesn’t only give them almost an assured place in the final, but gives them back the title, for now, of the best team in the city.
Until Jese scored the second goal of the match in the 57th minute, it seemed like we would remember from this match was the Real Madrid defense and especially the trio of Alvaro Arbeloa, Sergio Ramos and Pepe doing their best to injure and/or frustrate Diego Costa, who was busy pulling off the usual antics as well.
On the other side it wasn’t a good match for Cristiano Ronaldo, usually busy waving his arms or flapping on the ground after the slightest of touches, trying to get back at someone for being sent off in the match against Athletic Bilbao.
But football, or at least the team that actually came to play it, won. Real Madrid opened with a deflected shot by Pepe that beat Courtois, but Real Madrid still deserved the lead and the win, dominating possession and being the only team trying to come up with anything inventive or trying to score.
Atletico Madrid came with the wrong kind of approach to this match, and showed once again that they might not be easy to score against, but they aren’t built to come back from behind because Simeone doesn’t have the players necessary to make these kind of changes to turn around a match against the likes of Real Madrid, right now the best team in Spain despite their league position.
Jese got the goal he deserved off a very good pass from Angel Di Maria, and the third goal was another deflected shot that confused Courtois who lost a big chunk of confidence by that point of the match. Real Madrid have a 3-0 lead going into the second leg next week, something that is going to be close to impossible for Atletico Madrid to overcome. However, with all the bad blood going on between the teams, you never know what their actual goal will be when they meet for the fourth time this season at the Vicente Calderon.