Real Madrid had a chaotic match against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, losing 1-0 (2-2 on aggregate) in the Champions League round of 16-second leg, but they were able to advance thanks to Atletico Madrid missing one penalty and seeing Julian Alvarez’s make erased due to a double hit on the ball after being reviewed by VAR. The 4-2 penalty shootout victory will now see Los Blancos head to the quarterfinals where they’ll face Arsenal in April on Paramount+ to continue their march to Munich.
While the end story was about penalty woes for Atleti, that wasn’t the narrative in regulation. With a chance to go ahead in regulation in the 69th minute, Kylian Mbappe won a penalty for Real Madrid following a challenge by Clement Lenglet but Vinicius Junior took the penalty, sending it high and wide of Jan Oblak’s net for his first missed penalty as a Real Madrid player. Los Blancos have rotated penalties this season with Vini. Jr, Mbappe, and Jude Bellingham all attempting multiple. They’ve all had similar records for Madrid but Ancelotti has essentially ridden the hot hand with each taker going until they’ve missed.
How have they done? Let’s take a look:
Real Madrid penalty statistics
|
Kylian Mbappe |
7 |
5 |
2 |
71.4% |
|
Vini Jr. |
4 |
3 |
1 |
75% |
|
Jude Bellingham |
2 |
1 |
1 |
50% |
A penalty rotation
In December while facing Getafe, Real Madrid won a penalty and Mbappe was set to take it, but he then gave the ball to Bellingham whose finish would be true, getting it past David Soria in an eventual 2-0 victory. At that time, Mbappe was in a scoring rut but still didn’t take the chance to find the back of the net.
Following the match, Ancelotti praised Mbappe for his unselfishness but when the next chance came to the Frenchman facing Athletic Bilbao, he would take it and missed the chance with Julen Agirrezabala saving the penalty. Bellingham would earn another chance in January facing Valencia but with him also missing, that put the next chance in the hands of Vini Jr.
A miss on the biggest stage
Facing Jan Oblak is always a scary proposition for a penalty taker which can sometimes cause a player to overcommit and that’s what happened to Vini Jr. He aimed for the upper 90 and missed with it going wide right at a critical moment.
Where things escalated is that during extra time, Vini Jr. was replaced in the match by 18-year-old Endrick, taking him out of the eventual penalty shootout that Real Madrid would win 4-2 with Antonio Rudiger taking the decisive penalty, even with Oblak getting his hand to it. Endrick never ended up taking a shot in the shootout and Real Madrid advanced, so all’s well that ends well, but if Ancelotti keeps his current rotation of takers, that would mean that next up is Mbappe.
He hasn’t taken one for Real Madrid in 2025 but after taking 59 during his career for club and county, making 47 of those (79.7%), Mbappe will be ready for the next chance that comes his way no matter what the occasion is. After all, he did convert three penalties in the 2022 World Cup final for France.
