Thibaut Courtois Offers Blunt Take on Julian Alvarez's Controversial Penalty Kick
Real Madrid caught plenty of breaks on Wednesday night, edging past city rival Atletico Madrid in a penalty shootout after the aggregate score ended level at Riyadh Air Metropolitano.
The luckiest and most controversial moment came during the penalty shootout. Julian Alvarez had the chance to tie it at 2-2, but as he took his shot, he slipped. Despite that, he still managed to beat Thibaut Courtois.
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Polish referee Szymon Marciniak signaled that Alvarez's penalty was disallowed after a VAR review. The replay showed that the forward slipped and made contact with the ball twice in one motion. As a result, the goal didn’t stand, and Real Madrid still led 3-1 in the shootout.
After the match, Courtois spoke to UEFA about Alvarez's penalty in the shootout, which was disallowed for a double touch. He noted that he could tell something was off about the shot taken by the Atletico Madrid standout (via BBC).
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I felt there was something weird going on, so we said it straight to the referee and then it was confirmed there was a double touch and it didn’t count, so that obviously gives us the edge. [Alvarez] slipped and he touched the ball twice and that is a missed penalty, you cannot touch the ball twice. That’s bad luck but it’s the rules.
- Thibaut Courtois
Real Madrid have once again eliminated Atletico Madrid from the Champions League and now face another Premier League opponent, Arsenal, led by Spanish manager Mikel Arteta. After knocking out Manchester City, the Spanish club will look to take down a second Premier League team this knockout stage.
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Eduardo is an experienced freelance football writer covering Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and PSG On SI. He also covers PSG for PSG Talk and French football for Ligue 1's official English website. He's contributed to NBC Sports' regional sports networks, including NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Bay Area & California, providing in-depth sports content for those markets.