Atlético de Madrid will play the quarterfinals of the Champions League against Leipzig on Thursday 13 at 9:00 p.m. at the José Alvalade stadium . Due to the special circumstances of this season, UEFA decided that this year the title would be resolved in a Final to eight with all matches behind closed doors in the Portuguese capital. A format in which Real Madrid will not participate after their elimination at the hands of Manchester City last Friday when they were defeated 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium . This will allow the rojiblancos to go further than the madridistas in the Champions League for the first time since the 1996-97 season .
That campaign the mattress team played the Champions League by winning the League the previous season . At that time, only the champions of each domestic championship played this tournament , which made Atlético the only Spanish representative. Therefore, technically it is the first time in history that the rojiblancos have gone further than Real Madrid in the Champions League (format in force since the 1992-93 season), since in the only previous precedent the whites had no right to take part.
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As of the 1997-98 season, the League runners-up were also playing in the Champions League and since 1999-00, the top four of the main leagues have this right. Since that system was established , until now the Madridistas had always been the team from the capital that had gone the furthest in the highest continental competition . The first precedent in the new Champions format came in the 2008-09 season, in which both reached the round of 16 and were eliminated (Atlético for Porto and Real Madrid for Liverpool). The following season the colchoneros lost in the group stage to Chelsea and Porto and the Whites in the second round against Olympique Lyon .
They did not meet again until the 2013-14 campaign and, since then, both Real Madrid and Atlético have participated in the Champions League. In this time there have been several clashes between both teams to try to break the statistics that we analyze, but all of them fell on the merengue side . The first of them took place precisely in 2014 and no less than in the final . That year, rojiblancos and madridistas saw each other at the Da Luz stadium in Lisbon, with the white victory in extra time 4-1 . The following season they met again , this time in the quarterfinals , the Chamartín class qualifying after drawing 0-0 at the Vicente Calderón and winning 1-0 at the Santiago Bernabéu .
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In 2015-2016, Vikings and Colchoneros joined their paths again in the final , this time at the Giuseppe Meazza in Milan. After a very even game and in which Simeone's men failed a shot from 11 meters through Griezmann , the penalty shoot-out was reached after the 1-1 final. The madridistas had more luck and took the jack to the water 5-3 . The following year, for the fourth time in a row , Atlético and Real Madrid crossed paths in the search for the title of European champion. This time it was in the semifinals and Zidane's men qualified for the Cardiff final after winning 3-0 in their fiefdom and falling on the banks of the Manzanares 1-2 .
In the 2017-18 season, the rojiblancos were eliminated in the group stage against Roma and Chelsea, while the meringues were proclaimed champions, defeating Liverpool 3-1 in the Kiev final. Last year, both Atlético and Real Madrid were left out of the Champions League in the round of 16 against Juventus and Ajax , respectively. This season, following the epic victory at Anfield against reigning European champions Liverpool, Simeone's disciples will seek to be Champions of the Champions for the first time . At least they have already broken the curse of not getting ahead of their neighbors in this competition.
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