An important page in the 2024/25 La Liga story has been written, with points shared at the end of the latest Madrid Derby in Los Blancos’ Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
This was the Spanish top-flight’s second Madrid Derby of the season and the second to end with the score tied at 1-1.
As things stand following Saturday’s showdown, Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid remain atop the league table on 50 points, while Diego Simeone’s Atlético Madrid remain hot on their heels with 49 points.
Meanwhile, Hansi Flick’s Barcelona now trails the league leaders by just two points with their win over Sevilla on Sunday, leaving them on 48 points.
On Saturday, Atleti played some solid stuff in settled possession phases and threatened with fluid counterattacking play, leading to some beautiful combinations between players on the away team.
However, the key to their leaving the Bernabeu with a point on Saturday lies in their excellent out-of-possession tactics, which frustrated Los Blancos from start to finish.
Simeone’s men held just 37.93% of the ball possession at the end of this contest, compared to Real Madrid’s 62.07%.
However, when including Atlético’s decisive penalty kick, the visitors ended the contest with slightly more xG (1.93) than the hosts (1.86), highlighting how well Atlético used the ball when they had it and how difficult it was for Real to turn their ball possession into goalscoring chances.
This post-match tactical analysis piece will primarily focus on Diego Simeone’s out-of-possession tactics, which stifled Real Madrid’s chance creation and helped his side take points from their rivals on Saturday.
We will provide an analysis of Atlético’s low-block, key defensive roles within the team’s tactics, and how they prevented their rivals from creating many clear-cut chances despite the star power in their team.
Real Madrid Vs Atlético Madrid Lineups & Formations
On Saturday, Carlo Ancelotti set his side up in a base 4-2-3-1 shape.
Thibaut Courtois started the game in goal behind a fairly makeshift backline, resulting from an injury crisis that has hit Real’s defence.
They are without Éder Militão, Antonio Rüdiger, and David Alaba at centre-back and Dani Carvajal at right-back.
Lucas Vázquez played at right-back alongside Aurélien Tchouaméni and Raúl Asencio at right and left centre-back, respectively.
Meanwhile, Fran García played the game at left-back.
Federico Valverde and Dani Ceballos started in central midfield behind Rodrygo on the right wing, Vinícius Júnior on the left wing, and Jude Bellingham in the ‘10’ position behind the scorer of Real’s only goal in this game, Kylian Mbappé, up front.
Ancelotti used three of his substitutes in this contest.
Firstly, he introduced Eduardo Camavinga and Luka Modrić for Lucas Vázquez and Dani Ceballos in the 80th minute.
Not too long after that, in the 88th minute, Brahim Díaz came on for Rodrygo, though the substitutes were unable to help Real find a winner.
As for the away side, Simeone set Atleti up in a 4-4-2 shape.
Jan Oblak was between the sticks behind Marcos Llorente at right-back, José María Giménez at right centre-back, Clement Lenglet at left centre-back, and Javi Galán at left-back.
Giuliano Simeone started on the right wing, with Samuel Lino on the opposite flank.
Rodrigo De Paul and Pablo Barrios played between the wide duo at right and left central midfield, respectively, while Julián Álvarez and Antoine Griezmann led the line for the visitors.
Simeone made five substitutions in this game.
The coach made a triple substitution on the 64-minute mark, introducing Nahuel Molina, Koke, and Reinildo Mandava for Giuliano Simeone, Samuel Lino, and Javi Galán.
They followed that up with the introduction of Ángel Correa for Rodrigo De Paul in the 77th minute.
Lastly, Alexander Sørloth came on for Julián Álvarez in the 81st minute of the game.
Real Madrid Vs Atlético Madrid Data Analysis
As mentioned, Real Madrid dominated the ball in this game, as you would expect from the Spanish giants at the Bernabeu.
Real Madrid Vs Atlético Madrid Heat Maps
The above heat maps from the game illustrate the imbalance in ball possession, emphasising Real’s territorial dominance over Atlético.
Los Blancos had far more of the ball inside their opponents’ half, while Atlético rarely left their own half with the ball.
Still, Real had little joy progressing deep into the final third.
Ancelotti’s men struggled to enter zone 14 or, crucially, the opponent’s box, which limited their threat and the quality of chances created considerably.
Real Madrid Vs Atlético Madrid Shot Maps
Indeed, discounting the penalty (worth 0.76 xG) and looking purely at non-penalty xG, Real were slightly more threatening than Atleti on Saturday.
The penalty that Simeone’s side won helped them tremendously and made a huge difference in the outcome of this fixture.
However, in this fixture, Real took more than twice as many shots as Atlético, most of which originated outside the penalty box and represented very low percentage efforts.
This was due to Atlético’s excellent low-block tactics, which denied Ancelotti’s side access to high-percentage areas and forced them to take shots from long range on numerous occasions.
On the other hand, Atleti did a better job of converting their final third entries into high-quality chances, with most of their chances coming from inside the box, leaving them with 0.13 xG per non-penalty shot to Real’s 0.08.
Real Madrid Vs Atlético Madrid Defensive Territory Maps
Taking a look at Figure 4, we can see how much deeper Atlético’s defensive actions typically occurred than Real’s.
Atlético’s average defensive line height is just on the edge of their own third, while Real’s is well inside Atleti’s half of the pitch.
Atlético’s defensive territory map is also notable in that they kept things very clean inside more dangerous areas.
Simeone’s men committed just two fouls behind the average height of their defensive line.
They defended in a disciplined manner, denying Real a chance to benefit from free kicks from threatening positions.
This is indicative of the high level of discipline with which Atlético entered this contest, including their commitment to tirelessly carrying out the manager’s tactics throughout the match to earn their point.
Atlético Madrid Low Block Tactics
The primary key to Atlético’s solidity in the low block versus Real Madrid was Simeone’s trademark pendulum defence.
While Atlético set up in a base 4-4-2 structure on paper, they spent most of the game operating in a 5-3-2—or even a 6-3-1 when fully collapsed into the low block.
Atlético’s five (or six) man backline was created by dropping the wingers in on either side of the back four.
This allowed the full-backs to remain horizontally compact with the centre-backs, preventing gaps from opening between them.
Thanks to the wingers tracking back, the full-backs could still offer cover for Real Madrid’s wide threats.
When Real played the ball out to one wing, the winger on that side would step out to close him down aggressively while the rest of the backline—including the ball-far winger—would shift across like a pendulum.
This protected Atleti’s backline by ensuring no easily exploitable gaps opened up as Real played the ball across the pitch from side to side.
It also prevented Los Blancos from overloading Atleti on the wing, where Rodrygo and Vinícius could rip a weakened defence to shreds and create chances.
The top two images in Figure 5 illustrate how these defensive tactics were effective.
These tactics demanded a lot from Atleti’s wingers and full-backs in terms of physical exertion and mental energy, too.
In the second half, some fatigue quickly became evident in Atlético’s wingers and full-backs—hence Simeone’s triple substitution on the 64-minute mark, which wasn’t a minute too soon, replacing two wingers and a full-back—all the wide starters except for Marcos Llorente.
Real relied heavily on the wings for their chance creation on Saturday—understandable given the threat that Vinícius and Rodrygo pose.
However, Simeone had his side well-prepared for the task at hand, and they dealt admirably with the wide threats through organization and immense effort.
Atlético’s wide fatigue was evident in their defensive duel success versus Real’s offensive duel success.
Simeone’s side had a 66.67% defensive duel success rate in the first half, but this dropped to 45.95% in the second half.
Atlético’s worst period of defensive duel success in the game came during the first 15 minutes of the second half, prior to their substitutions.
Meanwhile, four out of Vinícius Júnior’s six successful offensive duels occurred in the second half, along with Rodrygo’s successful offensive duel to set up Kylian Mbappé’s equaliser.
All of Marcos Llorente and Javi Galán’s unsuccessful defensive duels occurred in the second half of the game, further highlighting the impact of fatigue and the need for high fitness levels for the success of these Simeone tactics.
Looking back at Figure 5, the bottom two images show another important aspect of Atleti’s defensive tactics on Saturday: their central midfielders’ position-oriented marking.
In this case, it’s evident through Mbappé‘s movement.
First, the attacker picks up the ball in left central midfielder Barrios’ zone, prompting the 21-year-old to step up and get tight to the French attacker.
This denies him space to turn and forces the backward pass.
As Mbappé drifts across to the other side of the pitch, he enters De Paul’s zone, prompting the Argentinian midfielder to pick him up instead, with Barrios switching the Frenchman off to De Paul seamlessly, ensuring the world-class forward doesn’t find space through his movement.
Figure 6 shows another example of De Paul closing Mbappé down from the blind side after receiving the ball.
On this occasion, as play moves on, De Paul forces Mbappé back into his own half before the Argentinian midfielder eases off and begins retreating to his base position.
Atlético’s midfielders marked tightly in a position-oriented zonal pressing system throughout this game, continuously denying Real players space in the centre of the pitch.
Crucially, Real also continuously failed to exploit the space opening behind Atlético’s midfielders when they were dragged slightly high, as was the case with De Paul here.
This resulted in constant backwards movement and the restarting of possession from scratch.
These aggressive, position-oriented marking tactics and Atleti’s pendulum backline frustrated Real, encouraging long switches and riskier play.
These tactics either allowed Simeone’s side time to restructure or gave them an opportunity to intercept and hit Real on the counter.
When Atlético forced Real to play backwards, their backline was always pushing up to squeeze the space between the lines and buy Atleti more territory, again trying to make life more difficult for the home side.
All of this, and crucially, the players’ strong implementation of the plan, created a very well-organised defensive structure that helped Atleti take a point from this trip to their city rivals’ ground.
Conclusion
To conclude our tactical analysis, Atlético Madrid earned a point on Saturday’s trip to the Bernabeu despite Real’s dominance of the ball.
This was largely due to Simeone’s low-block tactics, which were characterised by a pendulum backline and position-oriented marking in the middle of the park.
These tactics took a lot out of their players, both physically and, no doubt, mentally.
However, Simeone’s well-timed substitutions and the players’ grit ensured they got over the line without conceding more than once.
