Atletico Madrid rallies at Mendizorroza, beats Alaves 1-2 on Romero's 86th-minute header

A Cristian Romero header in the 86th minute, off a cross from Alex Baena on the right, sent Atletico Madrid home from Mendizorroza with a 1-2 win in a game that had a bit of everything: an Alaves side down a man from the 60th minute that never stopped pushing forward, a red card overturned by VAR in the middle of the match, and a penalty that had leveled the score just two minutes into the second half.

Atletico struck first without much fuss. In the 32nd minute, Alejandro Grimaldo finished with his left foot from inside the box after a Jonathan David assist, making it 0-1 following a first half in which Diego Simeone's side had created considerably more danger than the home team. But things got complicated right before the break: Robin Le Normand brought down Toni Martinez in the box for a penalty and picked up a yellow card, and at the start of the second half, in the 50th minute, Lucas Boye converted it to make it 1-1.

That's when the match really heated up. Alaves, buoyed by the equalizer and the home crowd, went through a dramatic sequence: in the 59th minute VAR stepped in to overturn a red card shown to Angel Perez, but barely a minute later the same player was sent off anyway. Down a man for a long half hour, Quique Sanchez Flores's side held on as best it could, even creating chances through its substitutions (Mariano Diaz had a couple of attempts), but the toll of playing shorthanded eventually caught up with them. Atletico, with Julian Alvarez and Alex Baena already on the field, kept probing down the flanks until Baena delivered the cross that Cristian Romero headed home from point-blank range to make it 1-2 in the 86th minute.

The numbers behind the dominance

Possession and shot counts make clear the gap in game control between the two sides, despite how tight the final score was:

With 22 shots to Alaves's 8, the xG split generated over the course of the match (our own in-house estimate based on the location of each shot) also clearly favors Atletico: 2.02 to Alaves's 1.07. That confirms Simeone's side didn't just win, it was decisively superior in terms of chances created, even accounting for the opponent's red card, which in theory should have widened that gap even further.

What the preview said

Before kickoff we had projected a 49% chance of an away win, 24% for a home win and 27% for a draw, with expected goals of 1.67 for Atletico and 1.10 for Alaves. The final result ended up matching that favoritism, though the path there wasn't as straightforward as the forecast suggested: Boye's penalty brought Alaves back into the match in a stretch where, despite soon being reduced to ten men, the home side kept alive the possibility of a different outcome until Romero settled things near the end.

What the match leaves behind

Atletico Madrid picks up a win that keeps it in second place in the standings, 8 points behind the leader according to the table, while Alaves is left with the feeling of having competed on equal terms for a good stretch of the match despite playing a man down for half an hour. Angel Perez's red card, overturned and then confirmed within a matter of minutes, will stand as one of the most striking moments of an afternoon the Vitoria-based club couldn't close out despite pushing hard in the final stretch.