MADRID (AP) — A slip, a double touch, a missed penalty.
Just like that, Atletico Madrid endured yet another heartbreaking loss to rival Real Madrid in the Champions League.
Julián Álvarez slipped and double-touched the ball while taking his penalty kick in the shootout against Madrid on Wednesday, resulting in the goal being erased after video review confirmed the infraction.
It would have tied the shootout 2-2. But Real Madrid eventually moved ahead 3-1 and won by a final score of 4-2 to advance to the quarterfinals and keep alive its hopes of winning the Champions League again.
“I felt that he touched the ball twice and I told the referee,” Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois said. “It’s not easy to see that. It was a bit of bad luck for them there.”
The referee did not initially see the double touch but Madrid players were calling it to his attention.
Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said he didn’t notice the double kick in the process of the penalty being taken, but in the replays “it seemed that there was a second touch with his left foot.”
Atletico coach Diego Simeone said he didn’t see a double touch by the Argentina international but wanted “to believe that if the VAR intervened it’s because it saw something.”
It was hard to tell from the images whether Álvarez’s standing left foot, which was the one that slipped, caused the first or the second touch on the ball.
According to the rules, after a first touch the penalty kicker “must not play the ball again until it has touched another player.” It the infraction happens during the match, than an indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team. In a shootout, the goal doesn’t count.
Conor Gallagher scored less than 30 seconds into the match to give Atletico a 1-0 win after regulation and extra time to leave the score 2-2 on aggregate. Madrid won the first leg 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium last week.
For Atletico, which has never won the top European club competition, it meant another excruciating setback against Madrid — the fifth consecutive to the city rival.
Atletico lost two Champions League finals to Madrid — in 2014 and 2016 — and was eliminated the other two times they faced off in the knockout rounds — in the 2015 quarterfinals and 2017 semifinals.
“It hurts,” Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak said. “We played a great match but unfortunately we were a bit unlucky. It’s a shame. It hurts a lot.”
Simeone didn’t want to blame the elimination on bad luck.
“I wouldn’t talk about luck. I would talk about feeling proud of the team that we have and about how we always compete,” Simeone said. “Madrid has always beaten us in the Champions League, but they have always suffered. I’m sure they’ll always remember that.”
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