Real Madrid’s qualification for the quarter-finals of the Champions League is on everyone’s lips in Spain. And it’s not going down well at all.
Julian Alvarez’s two-footed penalty kick may not be entering the Guinness Book of Records, but since last night, his effort has certainly been on everyone’s lips in Spain. This morning, you only have to browse the major Spanish sports sites to realize the magnitude of Atlético Madrid’s controversial elimination against Real Madrid (2-2 on aggregate, 2-4 on penalties) in the last 16 of the Champions League.
The Argentinian world champion, who scored his team’s second penalty last night after 120 breathless minutes, ultimately saw the goal denied him by a VAR decision. Such a rare scene, it even aroused the astonishment of Eduardo Camavinga and Aurélien Tchouameni after the match. “It’s a pretty bizarre penalty shootout, it’s the first time I’ve seen someone take two touches before taking a penalty,” the former said on Canal+. On Spanish radio, this episode gave rise to even more heated discussions and debates.
“If it were Real Madrid, it would be heading to the Super League tomorrow.”
On the Cadena Ser program El Larguero, for example, Spanish journalist Manu Carreno expressed his incomprehension, criticizing a lack of transparency on the part of the VAR, which did not make public the exchanges with the match referee, Szymon Marciniak, which led to this decision: “if there are thousands of us here and NO ONE knows why the penalty kick is truly disallowed…” On the Carrusel Deportivo program, former referee Eduardo Iturralde González also called for more transparency: “I don’t believe in conspiracies, I think he touched it twice. But it would have been good, speaking of transparency, to show the image where the VAR tells the referee that the goal should be disallowed.”
In Cope’s El Partidazo, commentator Juanma Castaño added: “If this scenario had played out to the detriment of Real Madrid, it would have been heading to the Super League tomorrow.” Spanish presenter Gonzalo Miró was also incredulous on Cadena Cope’s Tiempo de Juego program: “I’m still thinking about what happened, because I don’t understand. And if I remember watching football correctly, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It will be like that, I’m not arguing. I’ll have to see a frame where they see Julián Álvarez touch the ball twice on the shot; I didn’t see it, I don’t see it in slow motion.” Former player Kiko Narvaez went even further on the El Larguero show: “It’s really shameful that in 2025, we’re checking for 35 minutes to see if Julian touched the ball twice or not. As a viewer, we should have access to a magnifying glass. The reason for the suspicions is that they don’t publish the images.” At the press conference, Diego Simeone consoled himself with the silence of the journalists: “If anyone saw that Julian touched the ball twice, raise your hand.” No one reacted.
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