Borussia Dortmund embrace history at the Metropolitano

news banner image

Borussia Dortmund are the only German team to have won at Atletico Madrid's stadium in the Champions League. It happened in the group stage of the 1996-97 season.

7 months ago
None other than Borussia Dortmund">Borussia Dortmund, 0-1 in 1996, not even Bayern Munich in their 3 visits to Madrid in the Diego Simeone era, have beaten Atletico Madrid in their 10 home meetings against German opponents in the Champions League, either at the Vicente Calderon or at the Civitas Metropolitano.
In the group stage of the 1996-97 season, the same season in which Borussia Dortmund went on to become European champions, the two sides met at the Vicente Calderon on 16th October 1996, with Radomir Antic as coach of the team that had wonLa Liga and Copa del Rey double a few months earlier, and with Diego Simeone, the current Atletico Madrid coach, as midfielder.
Jose Francisco Molina, in goal; Delfi Geli, Roberto Solozabal, Santi Denia and Toni Munoz, in defence; Carlos Aguilera, the aforementioned Diego Simeone, Radek Bejbl and Milinko Pantic, in midfield; and Juan Eduardo Esnaider and Kiko Narvaez, up front, formed the Spanish side's starting eleven. Juan Carlos and Juanma Lopez came on later.
Borussia Dortmund, coached by Ottmar Hitzfeld, started with Stefan Klos; Jurgen Kohler, Wolfgang Feiersinger, Julio César; Stefan Reuter, Paul Lambert, Rene Tretschok, Michel Zorc, Jorg Heinrich; Stephane Chapuisat and Lars Ricken.
In the 51st minute, Reuter scored the winning goal for Germany. Only then, on 19th September 1979 (1-2 against Dynamo Dresden) and 22nd October 1975 (1-2 against Eintracht), have Atletico lost at home to a German side in 24 matches.

And that 1-0 defeat represents the only loss against German opposition in their last 15 home games or 27 years in European competition. Atletico have won 10 and drawn five.
Not at the Vicente Calderon, with two 1-0 defeats: on 27th April 2016 in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals, with that memorable goal by Saul Niguez, and on 28 September 2016 in the first round, with Yannick Carrasco's goal, nor at the Metropolitano, with a 1-1 draw on 1st December 2020 in the group stage.
Neither have Bayer Leverkusen, the last German visitors to the Metropolitano, who managed a draw (2-2) in the group stage, with Xabi Alonso at the helm of the team, although still without reaching the current huge level, one win away from being the Bundesliga champions.
It was 26th October 2022. Atletico were eliminated from the Champions League with Yannick Carrasco's late penalty. That same opponent also pushed them to the limit in the last 16 of 2014-15 until they overcame them on penalties.
Similarly, Borussia Dortmund themselves lost, 2-0 on 6th November 2018 in their group stage competition for first place (it fell to the German side afterwards), and Hannover 96, in the 2011-12 Europa League (2-1), within the Diego Simeone era and of those 15 one-loss duels completed in other eras.

Comments