Full-time: Atletico 1-0 Leicester
A disputed penalty is the difference between the teams going into a second leg for which Huth will be missing, which is a pity for Leicester because he was part of a generally fine defensive performance here, along with Benalouane and Ndidi, in particular. Atletico dominated possession but were restricted to few chances. All in all, the 1-0 result is probably acceptable to both teams, as Leicester barely looked like scoring today and Atletico will fancy netting at the King Power.
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90+1 min: Mahrez has the ball in Atletico’s half. Will he open fire from 45 yards just so Leicester can say they had a shot on target? No.
90 min: It’s all-out defence by Leicester now...
88 min: A wizardly dribble in the box by Correa! He dodged his way between three players and then rolled the ball across the face of goal ... but no team-mate was there to take advantage!
86 min: Koke attempts to send a freekick into the box from 25 yards but fails to beat the wall, which consisted of Mahrez and no one else. Not so much a wall, then, as a sign-post. To compound his embarrassment Koke then barges Mahrez to the ground, conceding a freekick the other way.
85 min: Superb positioning and reactions by Benalouane, who clears a Juanfran cross from right in front of his own goal, much to the dismay of Griezmann, who was awaiting a tap-in!
83 min: A member of Leicester’s backroom staff appears to have been sent off for straying into Atletico’s technical area on his way back from giving an energy sachet to a Leicester player. Such officiousness would be easier to bear if Leicester were not trailing to a penalty awarded for a foul outside the box.
82 min: Huth and Benalouane have been very good for Leicester so far. Huth’s suspension means that if Morgan is fit for the second leg he will have big boots to fill in more ways than one.
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80 min: King bursts between two defenders down the right and sends over a good cross. But Slimani can’t retrieve it, and Thomas chugs down the right flank with the ball.
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Leicester substitution: Slimani on, Vardy off.
76 min: Leicester continue to defend with admirable vigilance. Benalouane just showed excellent composure and strength to step between Correa and the ball to stifle a threatening attack.
Atletico substitution: Thomas on, Torres off. Thomas isn’t particularly powerfully built, which is a pity because it would have been nice to be able to refer to him as a tank engine.
73 min: Torres skitters towards the edge of the box, then slips the ball wide to Griezmann on the right. The Frenchman fires a low ball across the face of goal. Correa stretches but can’t connect!
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71 min: Demarai Gray and Islam Slimani are warming up. Is Shakespeare about to up the ante in search of an away goal?
69 min: As we approach what the Lincoln City manager Danny Cowley likes to call the eighth ninth of the match, the contest remains finely poised. Atletico clearly want a second goal but are far from gungho, knowing that Leicester could strike on the counter and, moreover, they are capable of scoring at the King Power themselves so 1-0 will be tolerable for both sides.
66 min: Corner to Atletico. The hosts continue to enjoy possessional supremacy but Leicester are defending well. Benalouane, baby!
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63 min: Mahrez clips Carrasco, conceding a freekick from prime crossing territory to the left of the Leicester box. Griezmann delivers. Ndidi intercepts and then releases Albrighton, who scampers 20 yards forward before feeding Vardy. Filipe Luiz intervenes and puts the ball out for a corner. Except the ref awards a goalkick.
61 min: Gabi pings a low pass in to Torres, who takes one cool touch to wrongfoot Huth and set himself up for a clear shot from 16 yards .... but he smashes the ball into his own foot, a comical feat of contortion last seen in his Chelsea days! What a timely flashback that was for Leicester.
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60 min: Mahrez collects the ball on the left wing and jinks and feints his way into the box. he beats one player and then ... dives in front of Gabi. Despite the appeals from the Leicester fans, the ref got that decision right. Mahrez is lucky not to be booked.
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58 min: Leicester try to put Leicester back in their box - literally. Griezmann darts past Huth and towards the area but the German shunts him to the ground, earning a yellow card that rules him out of the second leg.
57 min: When I said that Leicester had half a mind on settling for a 1-0 defeat, that of course meant that they had the other half on chasing an equaliser - and they’ve spent the last couple of minutes doing just that.
55 min: A long throw-in from Fuchs causes discomfort in the Atletico box. A shot by Huth is charged down, then the ball breaks to Mahrez, who jinks on to his left peg and then curls a shot wide. He was aiming for the top corner but was a couple of yards off.
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53 min: It’s still all Atletico. At this stage, with Leicester having beefed up midfield with the introduction of King, Leicester seem to have half a mind on settling for a 1-0 defeat.
50 min: Yellow card for Benalouane for a late challenge on Fernando Torres, Atletico have a chance now to put more pressure on Leicester. But the visitors defend this one well.
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48 min: Corner to Atletico who have started the second half well, Gabi has put in and it was headed away then a free out to Leicester as King was pushed in the back by Saul
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46 min: And the second-half begins, can Leicester grab an away goal to unsettle Atletico? Andy King has come on for Okazaki, otherwise both sides are unchanged
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HALF-TIME: Atletico 1-0 Leicester
So then, will Shakespeare inspire the sort of second-half turnaround that Leicester enjoyed at Sevilla during Ranieri’s last match in charge?
44 min: Preposterously naive decision against Vardy by the referee there - it really is amazing how often top officials are duped by a defender falling over the ball as soon as an attacker rushes over to apply pressure.
42 min: Atletico are popping the ball about near the Leicester box, probing for an opening that might bring a second goal before Leicester have a chance to regroup during the break.
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40 min: Good work by Vardy, who harasses Koke into surrendering the ball mid-way inside his own half. Albrighton takes it up, jigs forward a few yards and then has a ping from long-range. He struck it hard and wide.
37 min: Koke has a lash from 25 yards. It’s a decent effort but whizzes a couple of yards past the far post.
35 min: Leicester are more enterprising than they were in the first 20 minutes but, wisely, have not become obsessed with chasing an immediate equaliser, aware that that would risk being exposed to another counter-attack.
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33 min: Fuchs misjudges a crossfield pass and is caught out of position as Saul receives it. Fortunately for the Austrian Ndidi got back to make a saving tackle in the box.
30 min: The replay has confirmed that Albrighton’s foul was outside the box, where the Leicester player clunked rather cynically into Griezmann. Personally I’d give a penalty for such challenges no matter where they occurred on the pitch (and, similarly, would not necessarily give a penalty for every foul in the box) but that’s not the law, under which that should not have been a pen.
GOAL! Atletico 1-0 Leicester (Griezmann pen 28)
Griezmann sends Schmeichel the wrong way and strokes the ball into the other corner. A blow to Leicester, who were caught out by a rapid counter-attack just as they were growing in confidence and menace. They may still grumble that Albrighton’s foul was outside the box, mind.
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PENALTY TO ATLETICO!
Albrighton galumphs into Griezmann. It looked to be just outside the box but the referee points to the spot.
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25 min: Leicester are looking more and more settled. And increasingly dangerous, too. Albrighton has just swung over two fine crosses from the left. Vardy managed to get a slight touch to the second one at the near post but that took it away from Okazaki, who was arriving behind him in the hope of firing into the net.
24 min: Whistles from the home crowd as Leicester knock the ball around at the back. Music to the away team’s ears.
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22 min: Fuchs curls in a delicious cross from the left. Vardy can’t beat the two central defenders to it but at least that was a sign of Leicester’s slightly growing poise. Could it be that they have weathered the storm and will start attacking with more regularity?
20 min: Ndidi breaks up an Atletico move yet again, then offloads to Mahrez, who is pulled back. Leicester have a freekick on halfway and a chance to exhale.
18 min: Ndidi sabotages a home attack and allows Leicester to piece together several passes into opposing territory, for practically the first time in the match. It lasted about 30 seconds before Atletico won it back. Ndidi is definitely Leicester’s main man in the middle so far, as Drinkwater had made a ragged start.
15 min: The siege continues. Albrighton thought he had a chance to lift it momentarily but was overpowered by Juanfran near his own corner flag. The Atletico right-back then crossed for their left-back, Filipe Luiz, whose header near the far post failed to find the target. But that’s another indication of the amount of pressure Atletico are applying.
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13 min: A slip by Ndidi gives Griezmann a sight of goal from 25 yards. He goes for it. But misses by a long way, his shot hurtling several yards over the bar.
11 min: Ndidi has really grown for Leicester in recent weeks and he has begun well here, too. Atletico are dominating possession but when they do lose the ball, it is often because of interference by Ndidi.
9 min: Griezmann floats over a cross from the left. Huth, backpedalling near the penalty spot, succeeds only in heading it backwards, inviting Carrasco to try a volley from nine yards! Fuchs applies just enough pressure to put the forward off, and Carraso wellies a sliced shot into the stands. A let-off for Leicester and no mistake!
7 min: Griezman flips a pass through to Koke, whose shot from just inside the box is blocked well by Benalouane. Atletico are unleashing a whirlwind here and Leicester are having to cling on for all their worth.
5 min: Koke turns on to his right foot and then lets fly from 25 yards. It fizzes through the air and crashes into the post! Schmeichel dived full-length to meet it but it’s far from sure that he would have stopped it if it had been on target.
3 min: Leicester launch a trademark counter-attack, Vardy racing down the left to latch on to a smart long pass over the top by Okazaki. The striker then flashed a dangerous ball across the face of goal. But he had done everything a tad too fast for Mahrez, who couldn’t quite get on the end of the cross.
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2 min: Fine play by Ndidi, who tracked back well to muscle Carrasco off the ball on the edge of the area. But Atletico soon regain it and resume trying to overwhelm the visitors early doors.
1 min: It’s on!
The teams march out on to the pitch and into a spectacular arena, awash with colour and giddy noise! Atletico are in their usual garb, while Leicester are wearing blue tops along with white shorts and socks, which, for kicks, we can interpret as a blatantly provocative gesture of support for Atletico’s cross-town rivals. Though in truth, it makes them look like Everton.
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Anyone think Craig Shakespeare got his lineup wrong here? Doubt it. The team team pretty much picks itself, the only really difficult decision being whether to start Demarai Gray rather than Marc Albrighton. But the manager plumped for the right man, in my view, as Albrighton is sturdier defensively as well as an exceptionally dangerous crosser. Gray can produce excellent bursts, of course, and could yet make a big impact from the bench.
Uefa’s fact sheet for this game claims that Atletico have never lost at home to English opponents in 10 encounters so far, but that’s not strictly true. Derby County did them over in the 1975 Uefa Cup, winning on a penalty shootout in Madrid after a 4-4 aggregate draw. So there.
Following last night’s attack in Dortmund there will be reinforced security around this match and perhaps some extra tension in the air. There were already unrelated bad vibes in Madrid last night, as police arrested eight Leicester fans for “disrespecting police officers” and causing “disorder” around a major plaza in the Spanish capital. Many Leicester fans gave alternative accounts, complaining of an over-reaction by the local constabulary to harmless revelry. The authorities maintain they moved in to disperse people who were “causing trouble”. Disagreements over the distinction between “revelry” and “trouble” are, of course, a persistent feature of the policing and English football fan experience. There were further confrontations between police and a small number of the 3,000 or so visiting fans today, with several reports mentioning the chucking of bottles and the airing of antagonistic chants about Gibraltar. Another valuable cultural exchange, then.
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TEAMS
Atletico: Oblak; Juanfran, Godin, Savic, Filipe Luis; Koke, Gabi, Saul, Carrasco; Griezmann, Torres
Subs: Moreira, Lucas, Gimenez, Thomas, Cerci, Gaitan, Correa
Leicester: Schmeichel; Simpson, Benalouane, Huth, Fuchs; Mahrez, Drinkwater, Ndidi, Albrighton; Okazaki, Vardy.
Subs: Zieler, Chilwell, King, Amartey, Slimani, Gray, Ulloa
Referee: J Eriksson (Sweden)
Players one booking away from a suspension: Huth, Slimani, Vardy and Ndidi (Leicester); and Gimenez (Atletico)
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Preamble
Hello. On a scale of one to 2016, where would an away win today rank on the Great Leicester City Miracle-o-Meter? Last year’s shock Premier League winners are participating in the Europe’s elite competition for the very first time and now, at the quarter-final stage, they’re up against a team that has reached two of the last three Champions League finals. Gulp! What is more, Atletico Madrid are probably the last team that they would have chosen to face, since Diego Simeone’s warriors generally play with the same ferocity as Leicester but with more quality and experience. Leicester will have to crank into turbo-power to knock these lads off stride.
The last time Leicester visited Spain, which was a couple of months ago, they looked to be on their way to an almighty hiding until a second-half revival led to them escaping Sevilla with just a 2-1 defeat. Claudio Ranieri sensed that that would prove a turning point in a stuttering season – and so it did, as the Italian was sacked straight afterwards and replaced by his assistant, Craig Shakespeare, under whom Leicester have soared clear of relegation bother in the Premier League and regained the mojo that fuelled last season’s success. But how far can Shakespeare take them in Europe? He’d probably settle for another 2-1 defeat today and hope for another rousing second leg at the King Power.
Let’s all offer particularly fond wishes to Yohan Benalouane today. While the whole world was enjoying Leicester’s astonishing triumph last season, Benalouane must have been prey to the most bitter thoughts, as he was forced to watch the action from a state of internal exile, notionally part of the squad but cropped out of every meaningful shot. At least Ritchie de Laet was allowed to leave and look away, but Benalouane had to keep turning up every day to press his nose up against the first team window. That could drive a lesser man, such as me, to vandalism. Benalouane peacefully bided his time, however, and a few weeks ago Wes Morgan’s injury led to the Tunisian being summoned to play for the first time in over a year – and his performances since then have made observers wonder why he was overlooked for so long. Today, for the most prestigious match in his club’s history, he will partner Robert Huth in the heart of Leicester’s defence and attempt to subdue the likes of Antoine Griezmann and Fernando Torres. Dreamers demand that Benalouane shuts out the lot of them before heading a last-minute away winner. Not today’s most likely scenarioy, we’ll grant you that, but the prospect of it unfolding is one excellent reason to stay tuned to this here MBM. Feel free to suggest other more or less probable scenarios.
Meanwhile, get a load of Sid Lowe on Diego Simeone …
… and here’s Daniel Taylor’s report from Madrid on Leicester’s hopes and preparations …
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