{"id":11394,"date":"2022-03-16T08:46:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T03:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=203734"},"modified":"2022-03-16T08:46:18","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T03:16:18","slug":"fatal-night-for-manchester-united-against-atletico-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/football\/fatal-night-for-manchester-united-against-atletico-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Fatal night for Manchester United against Atletico Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester United\u2019s Champions League quest came to an abrupt end with a defeat at Old Trafford to Atletico Madrid, leaving united with only a Premier League top-four spot to contend for this season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Renan Lodi\u2019s distant header four minutes until half-time sent the Spanish champions into the last eight. Ralf Rangnick\u2019s side was not short on effort but appears to lack the guile to break down Atletico\u2019s trademark resilience.<\/span><\/p>\n

United held possession for much of the second half, but Atletico developed a defensive wall of resistance \u2013 and then when they did menace, goalkeeper Jan Oblak offered the ultimate line of defence.\u00a0<\/span>He made a wonderful save in front of the Stretford End from Raphael Varane\u2019s header, leaving United to fight for a spot in the next season\u2019s Champions League in the closing games of the domestic season.<\/p>\n

Manchester United followed the lead of so many other teams who have succumbed at the hands of Diego Simeone\u2019s extraordinarily durable Atletico machine. <\/span><\/p>\n

United put in a lot of endeavours and had Old Trafford rolling with a high-intensity start, but they ran out of ideas and inspiration as the game progressed, with Atletico burrowing in and defending with the same zeal they\u2019ve shown in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rangnick and United\u2019s hopelessness was outlined when struggling capt Harry Maguire was removed by veteran Juan Mata. Cristiano Ronaldo made several classic early touches, but he was a perivascular figure hard before the end. <\/span><\/p>\n

United was also furious by Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic\u2019s poor judging, particularly when they believed Anthony Elanga had been fouled shortly before Lodi appeared unmarked at the far post to head back home Antoine Griezmann\u2019s cross.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simeone pulls it off once again.\u00a0<\/span>After Atletico Madrid won at Anfield at this stage two years ago, Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp felt the same way, and while La Liga\u2019s champions aren\u2019t amongst Champions League favourites, no one wishes to be matched with them. They have players that can offer a class in attack, and they have one of the finest goalkeepers in the world in Oblak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ronaldo would end the season without a trophy for the very first time in 12 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266,"featured_media":33864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2087,410,321,2630,1879,249,2914,48],"class_list":["post-11394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-antonie-griezmann","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-david-de-gea","tag-diego-simeone","tag-manchester-united","tag-manchester-united-fc","tag-uefa-champions-league"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/266"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}