On an extraordinary day at the Estadio Vicente Calderon in Madrid, Atletico Madrid registered a thumping 4-0 win over title and city rivals Real Madrid. The champions started the game on a positive note and never stopped, while Madrid could never get started.
The defeat was also Reala s first and only league defeat at the Vicente Calderon in the 21st century, highlighting the enormity of the victory.
It all started with a goalkeeping error from captain Iker Casillas who fumbled a 20-yard Tiago shot that was aimed directly at him. Following it, a beautiful Saul Niguez bicycle kick put Atleti 2-0 ahead, sending the La Liga champions into half time with a two goal lead.
After the break, as Madrid pressed for an equaliser, throwing men forward, gaps emerged at the back, allowing Antoine Griezmann and Mario Mandzukic to get on the scoreboard and secure a famous win.
Ancelotti, who won two trophies, including La Decima, in his first season in charge of Real, blamed his teama s attitude for the defeat.
“It is very simple to read this game,” Ancelotti said. “Atletico deserved to win, they beat us in every respect — in fight, play, organisation, second balls.
“Why this happened, we must look at it over the next days. Clearly we are hurting a lot for this defeat, and clearly we must change our attitude, our motivation, above all to avoid a game like this happening again in future.”
When pressed on why such a defeat had occurred, the Italian coach admitted his teama s failures.
“We all failed, we all arrived second, we lost all the tackles, all the aerial battles,” he said. “We did not play the game at all. We did not have one player who played a good game.
“We did not have good possession, had no chances to counter, we had nothing [in attack] today. They deserved to win this game, they were better in everything. We were worse in everything.”
The focus then shifted to the managera s tactics. Ancelotti had started the attacking trio of BBC, Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo, leaving the team was a little short in midfield.
“With three attackers we have won Champions League and World Club Cup,” he said. “So that question makes no sense. The lineup was normal, the most clear, most logical to play in this game.” He continued, “It was the worst game of Real Madrid with me on this bench,” he added. “It is not normal that Real Madrid play a game like that, so I must take responsibility for that, and try and fix things quickly.
“We must evaluate what happened, change the attitude from this game. We will still sleep atop the table. The game was very very bad but I will not make too much noise. I have faith in these players and they can react again, as they did after [losing at] Real Sociedad [last autumn].”
Winning the derby ensured that Atleti stayed within touching distance of their rivals and are just four points behind the European Champions. The La Liga title race seems to be heading the same way as last year, when there was a proper three horse race with the third team being Barcelona who could move to within one point should they win their game in hand against Atletic Club on Sunday night.
