There was disappointment for the French duo of Antoine Griezmann and Thomas Lemar as their Atletico Madrid side suffered a rare European knockout loss under Diego Simeone on Tuesday night. Leading 2-0 from the first leg at the Wanda, everyone assumed Atleti, with the fine defensive reputation they’ve built under Simeone, would do enough to progress again, but Cristiano Ronaldo spoiled Los Colchoneros’ party with a hat trick, as Juve won 3-0 and booked their spot as Italy’s solitary representatives in the last eight. Atleti sorely missed the trio of Filipe Luis, Lucas Hernandez and Diego Costa and were very un-Atleti ish, letting in two goals from headers and conceding a needless penalty.
French player ratings according to L’Equipe from Juve v Atleti
Lemar and Griezmann (both 3), Blaise Matuidi (6)
It wasn’t quite the 10/10 performance that Dusan Tadic had earned, but Cristiano came mighty close, earning a 9 for his fine performance last night in Turin. He remains Atleti’s nemesis in Europe, and few players have troubled Los Colchoneros as he has.
France’s only CL representatives left in the competition following PSG’s shock exit– Olympique Lyonnais, will be in action tonight against Barcelona. Few will expect them to beat the Catalans, but if they do, we’d be in a rare situation of having no Spanish team in the last eight. As it stands, this is the only time this decade that we’ve had no Madrid side in the last eight of the competition.