Atletico Madrid 4 Club Brugge 1 (7-4)
Atletico’s quality sees them through. I’ve got to say I’ve been mightily impressed with Club Brugge over these two legs against a team that was heavy favourites going into the tie. Last week probably cost them overall gifting Atletico three unnecessary goals and having to go win away from home to go through. Brugge started the much stronger team in the first half with Carlos Forbs in particular getting past Ruggeri time and time again but it was Atletico who scored first after Sorloth’s shot went through the defenders legs and squirmed past Mignolet to put Atletico 1-0 up. Ten minutes later Brugge equalised from a corner after Mechele flicked it onto Ordonez who headed it in to make it 1-1. It didn’t take long for Atletico to take the lead in the second half with the ball falling to Johnny Cardoso on the edge of the box who fired a shot past Mignolet to give Atletico the lead in the 47th minute. As Brugge pushed for the equaliser gaps started appearing at the back which led to the third Atletico goal with Lookman and Griezmann linking up with the ball coming to Sorloth who finished easily to make it 3-1 on the night. Sorloth then grabbed his hat-trick after Ruggeri’s cross found him at the back-post to make it 4-1 on the night and push Atletico into the Round Of 16 in the Champions League.
Sorloth shines for Atletico yet again. The system that Simeone plays gets the best out of Alexander Sorloth in the 4-4-2 with both wingers only job really is to try and get crosses into the box and there’s few better in world football to get onto crosses than Sorloth. With Julian Alvarez having a really quiet game Atletico needed one of their frontmen to step up and get them over the line and that’s exactly what Sorloth did on the night. You don’t see it often these days in football were two strikers play alongside each other but it certainly worked in this game for Simeone who simply had to get Atletico through and into the next round in the Champions League. Atletico’s squad is strong this season with Simeone bringing on the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Ademola Lookman,Nahuel Molina and Jose Maria Gimenez to see out the game in the second half, they’ll need their big players firing if they are to challenge for the Champions League this season.
Club Brugge can hold their heads high. The scoreline doesn’t do justice for how well Brugge played over these two legs in my opinion. Yet again I think they largely outplayed Atletico especially in that first half but just didn’t have the end quality that was really needed to score two or three in the first half. Raphael Onyedika was a huge miss in this game in the midfield getting suspended in the first leg after a man of the match performance last week alongside Stankovic in the middle of the park for Club Brugge. Carlos Forbs impressed me over the two legs getting the better of Ruggeri throughout the game a number of times but just lacked that final ball that could have worried Atletico’s goalkeeper. Overall Club Brugge can be proud of how they went about these two games and were unlucky to lose by three goals in the end.
I’m not at all convinced by Atletico Madrid. After the game last week were Brugge gifted Atletico goal after goal I thought Simeone’s side would come out and blow Brugge away but yet again Atletico were poor for large portions of this match which easily could have cost them on another day if Brugge were more clinical. They badly need Pablo Barrios to return from injury as soon as possible with Koke’s best days looking behind him as he couldn’t keep up with Brugge multiple times on the counter, the inconsistencies are there to see in this Atletico side, just look at a couple of weeks ago were the beat Barcelona 4-0 in the first leg of the Copa Del Rey Semi-Final then three days later lost 3-0 to Rayo Vallecano in the league, you just don’t know which team is gonna turn up and that has to be a massive worry for Simeone as we reach the last few months of the season.
Atletico will now face either Liverpool or Spurs in the next round. I’d imagine it’s fairly obvious which team Simeone would rather take on as Spurs currently sit 16th in the Premier League and haven’t won a match in the league in 2026, however they have looked good in the Champions League this season so far and could recover a few players in time for that tie in a couple of weeks. On the other hand Simeone would be keen to avoid Liverpool having already lost at Anfield this season a few months ago 3-2. You might remember the clash between these two in 2020 were Atletico shocked Liverpool at Anfield just before lockdown running out 2-3 winners on the night as Marcos Llorente scored two with Alvaro Morata getting a late dagger to send Liverpool out of the Champions League. Whatever way the draw goes it’ll be an English side to take on Atletico Madrid in Europe once again in what’s sure to be a fun tie for the neutrals.