Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid: Team News, Preview, Live Stream, TV Info

Zinedine Zidane’s message was a simple one. “We’ll have to run, run and run,” the Frenchman said at his pre-match press conference. “We know what it is to suffer.”

The term “suffer” is a very Spanish one, used to describe one’s existence when under pressure and being put through a grind. Real Madrid know that facing Atletico Madrid involves exactly that. For Atletico, they know that every game of theirs involves exactly that.

But more than anything, these teams know each other. 

On Saturday at San Siro in Milan, Italy, Real Madrid and Atletico meet once more in the final of this season’s UEFA Champions League. After the battle in the 2014 finale at the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon between these city rivals, to many this is the sequel, Part Two. But it is so much more than that. 

Since the 2013 Copa del Rey final, the day the complexion of this derby was turned on its head, these teams have met a scarcely believable 16 times in three years. Saturday makes it 17.

The Madrid derby? “The never-ending derby,” said Marca. 

Indeed, it’s hard to recall two European finalists so familiar with one another, and it’s equally difficult to work out to whom that hands the edge. 

For Atletico, their suffocating three-year hold over their neighbours domestically will be a source of comfort as they approach this final, and yet, in the Champions League, there’s something about Real. They identify with it and it defines them, lighting something within them. Facing Real in La Liga is one thing; facing them in Europe is another entirely. 

And Atletico know it.

In Lisbon two years ago, Diego Simeone’s men saw Real stage a roaring late comeback to win 4-1 in added time, and last season Real toppled Atleti in Europe despite being sucker-punched by them all season elsewhere. 

Does that history play a part? “Things have changed [since the 2014 final],” said Koke at his club’s open media day last weekend. “Two years have passed.”

Atletico definitely have changed in that time, considerably more so …

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