Fire and a toxic underbelly in Madrid, Hayen’s incredible rise, Ovalle scorpion kick

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Hello! The Champions League is about to catch fire, as is the Madrid derby. We’re up for it like Diego Simeone…

On the way:

⏫ How Atletico rivalled Real

⚽ The coach Pep hit with a ball

🐖 Nuno’s piggy-back delight

🦂 Ovalle’s superb scorpion kick

A ‘worthy’ derby: Simeone brings Atletico toe-to-toe with Real Madrid in city feud

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb/The Athletic; Photos: Ian MacNicol, Giuseppe CACACE/AFP, Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto, Jasper Juinen, Angel Martinez, Denis Doyle, Harry Langer/DeFodi Images/Getty Images)

In Spain’s capital city, the honour so often resides with Real Madrid. They’re the establishment club, the European Cup conveyor belt, a giant in their own back yard and beyond.

By comparison, Atletico Madrid have a more hipster quality. Or if not that, more of an insurgent’s streak. They’re the team who the working-class suburbs embraced, a team for whom trophies are much harder to come by. But in the past decade, they’ve grown into worthy opponents, one half of a city rivalry that reignites in the Champions League tonight.

Atletico 2011-25 have been built in the image of their head coach, Diego Simeone, with resilience, blood and thunder to the last kick of the ball. But go back 15 years and they were Madrid’s token presence. Dermot Corrigan recalled an event in 2011 when Real’s fans flew a banner pleading for a ‘proper rival for a worthy derby’. Atletico had gone 13 years without beating Real and couldn’t lay a glove on them.

And yet, this derby — or derbi as the Spanish call it — consumed Madrid regardless. El Clasico (the rumble between Real and Barcelona) is La Liga’s showpiece, but it was genuinely surprising to read legendary Real forward Alfredo Di Stefano say in Dermot’s piece that “the rival was Atletico. Barcelona was further away, games against them lasted 90 minutes. Derbis against Atletico lasted all week”.

If that was the case back then, it’s overwhelmingly true today. Madrid is now the stage for one of Europe’s deepest feuds, contested by two sides who have to be separated with a stick. History says this two-legged Champions League last 16 tie will go the way of Real, but intuition says it’s far too close to call.

‘Thorns which still hurt’

Football being football, hostilities in Madrid are prone to going too far. The fixture has seen crowd trouble, incidents of racism, unsavoury moments. But the football itself casts a spell.

Four times Real have met Atletico in the Champions League’s knockout stages. Four times Real have done the business. Twice the trophy was close enough for Simeone to touch: in 2014 when Sergio Ramos’ 93rd-minute header (above) intervened just as Atletico thought they’d won it, and again in 2016 by the crushing twist of a penalty shootout.

By virtue of those cigarette-paper margins, Real are up to 15 European Cups/Champions Leagues while Atletico have none. The Champions League felt like Simeone’s calling, but it’s almost been the nemesis of Atletico’s head coach, the elusive prize he can’t reach.

There’s a fight going on about referees in Spain, one in which Simeone quipped that Real had been getting “100 years of decisions”. Real boss Carlo Ancelotti replied by saying that in Simeone’s case, “maybe there are thorns which still hurt”. It was a dig, we assumed, about 2014 and 2016 — and if Simeone is to ever get there in the Champions League, Real feel like the hurdle he has to get over first.

Catch a match

(Times ET/UK)

Champions League last 16, first leg: Club Brugge vs Aston Villa, 12.45pm/5.45pm — Paramount+/TNT Sports; Borussia Dortmund vs Lille, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports; PSV vs Arsenal, 3pm/8pm — Paramount+/Amazon Prime; Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid, 3pm/8pm — Paramount+/TNT Sports.

News round-up

• The appetite for European games to be played in the United States is ferocious and it’s going to happen. Serie A has announced that it’s committed to staging regular matches on U.S. soil in the next three years. The Italian league isn’t alone in that ambition.
• Real’s Vinicius Junior made the right noises from his club’s point of view when he spoke to the media yesterday. The entire world wants to know if he’s tempted by options and big money in Saudi Arabia. He insists he’s ready to extend his Bernabeu contract beyond 2027. We’ll see.
• You’ll probably recall Mikel Arteta bemoaning the ball used in England’s Carabao Cup. Now, the Football Association has been forced to defend the ball used in the FA Cup after criticism of it by Pep Guardiola. Pep claims it’s “not proper”. The FA says it meets FIFA’s standards. Ho, hum.
• FIFA looks likely to postpone the women’s Club World Cup, which was supposed to take place in 2026. Long story short: there’s far too much to sort out before then. It’ll be 2027 at the earliest.
• Last night’s La Liga game between Villarreal and Espanyol was postponed due to severe flood warnings — but called off so late that the teams were in the tunnel, ready to line-up when the announcement came. This is no joke, though. Only last year, floods devastated the local area. Better safe than sorry.
• Benni McCarthy, the former Ajax and South Africa striker, was part of Erik ten Hag’s backroom staff at Manchester United for a while. He’s got a new role as the boss of Kenya’s national team.

Road from nowhere: Hayen’s remarkable rise to Champions League via Haverfordwest County

TNT Sports

If you’ve followed the Champions League closely, Nicky Hayen’s name might ring a bell. He’s the coach who Guardiola accidentally threw a ball at while Manchester City were scrambling to get past Club Brugge in the league phase.

Hayen’s backstory is incredible and Stuart James has captured it brilliantly in this interview with him today. Though he comes from Belgium, Hayen’s big break — if we can call it that, with 102 people at his first match — was a gig managing Haverfordwest County in west Wales, starting in 2021, a gig so far off the beaten track that he was virtually in the sea.

The step out of his comfort zone opened the door to a job at Club Brugge and he became the head coach last year. A domestic title followed and this evening, it’s the Champions League’s last 16 against Aston Villa. There’s a great line in the interview about how Hayen talks to his late mother before every match and how it took a throwaway remark from his hairdresser to encourage him to see more of his mum before he lost her. As Stu writes, these are lessons for us all.

• I enjoyed our writers’ pick of eight under-the-radar Champions League players to look out for in the knockouts. After watching Feyenoord’s Igor Paixao give Milan and Kyle Walker the runaround (“with such relentless ferocity, you felt like calling a helpline”), I’m looking forward to seeing what he does to Inter and the other half of the city.

Smiles better: Nuno shows playful side in Forest’s cup win

TNT Sports

As a rule, there are fairly strict boundaries between head coaches and their players. Assistants tend to be closer to a squad, more of a friend than the top dog. The guy in the big chair has to show who’s in charge.

But there’s always room for a bit of fun, like Nuno Espirito Santo piggybacking defender Ola Aina around the pitch after Nottingham Forest snuck into the FA Cup’s quarter-finals on penalties last night. He can be stony-faced, Nuno, but even he could not avoid letting his hair down (so to speak).

And quite right, too. Forest’s season has been immense, full of aspiration, and whether it is Champions League qualification or winning the FA Cup, they deserve to take something lasting from it. Watching Nuno immerse himself in the jubilation after beating Ipswich Town, you got a sense of a project built on good vibes, which really can’t hurt.

Around TAFC

• Joshua Kimmich has been a Bayern Munich star for a decade. He’s out of contract this summer, though, and attempts to extend his deal have descended into chaos. Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal have eyes on him.
• For the first time in the Premier League era, Manchester United are heading for a bottom-half finish. But if they go on from the last 16 to win the Europa League, they’ll qualify for next season’s Champions League regardless. You don’t need us to tell you they’re desperate for the money that would bring in.
• Nick Miller’s investigation into the experiences of disabled supporters at Premier League grounds reveals just how far assistance for them falls short. It’s an important article.
• Most clicked in yesterday’s TAFC: Ruben Amorim and Wayne Rooney going at it.

And finally…

Fox Sports Vivo

Right up until our deadline, we were going to devote ‘And Finally…’ to a one-in-a-thousand backheel from Valencia’s Umar Sadiq, converted against Osasuna in La Liga.

At the death, however, it was usurped by a one-in-a-million touch from Jacqueline Ovalle (nickname: La Maga, or The Magician) in a Mexican league match between Tigres and Guadalajara. The cross is Jenni Hermoso’s. The flash of genius is Ovalle’s. She’s out of frame by the end of the GIF, but no wonder Hermoso dropped to her knees in shock.

(Top photo: Denis Doyle/Getty Images)