Real Madrid have reached a Champions League quarter-final tie with Arsenal after beating city rivals Atletico in a highly controversial penalty shootout.
Defender Antonio Rudiger scored the decisive spot-kick in a 4-2 shootout win after two Atletico players missed.
Marco Llorente’s shot struck the bar after Julian Alvarez slipped and had his penalty strike disallowed after a VAR check ruled that the Argentine had touched the ball twice.
Former Manchester City forward Julian Alvarez fired home his kick, and Atletico’s second, to make the score in the shootout 2-2, but he was judged to have touched the ball twice when officials scrutinised his shot, with suggestions that the sensor in the ball used for determining semi-automated offsides was able to detect that Alvarez had touched it twice.
Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham, Federico Valverde and Antonio Rudiger all scored for Real, with the latter squeezing his effort beyond Jan Oblak to give his side the win.
Atletico had taken the lead on the night and levelled the tie on aggregate after just 27 seconds of the second leg thanks to a goal from Conor Gallagher, who set three records with one swing of his right foot.
Giuliano Simeone flicked on Rodrgo De Paul’s centre from the right, and Gallagher came bursting in to fire the ball past Thibaut Courtois from close range and send the Wanda Metropolitano wild.
Gallagher’s goal was the fastest ever scored by an Englishman in the Champions League, while it was also Atletico’s fastest Champions League goal as well as the England international’s first in European competition.
At the other end, Vinicius Jr appealed for a penalty when he felt Simeone had handled in the box, but there was to be penalty pain for the Brazilian with 20 minutes of normal time remaining.
A swift Real Madrid move had seen Bellingham feed Mbappe, and the Frenchman cut inside two Atletico players before being felled by his compatriot Clement Lenglet.
Interestingly, Mbappe – who missed from the penalty spot against Liverpool in the league phase of the competition – left a spot kick to Vinicius, but the Brazilian blazed hopelessly high and wide over the crossbar to the delight of the home fans.
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