Schalke Draw Atletico Madrid in CL 3rd Qualifying Round

Yes­ter­day was the draw for the 3rd qual­i­fy­ing round of the Cham­pi­ons League, the last hur­dle before the group stages com­mence. There are plenty of inter­est­ing ties (Steve McClaren’s FC Twente vs. Arse­nal top­ping the list), but in pure foot­balling terms the best fix­ture pits Schalke 04 against Atletico Madrid. Nei­ther is the most accom­plished or tal­ented team in the com­pe­ti­tion, but together they form the strongest pair­ing. We have already pre­viewed Schalke on the site, so in keep­ing with our (incon­sis­tent) com­mit­ment to equal air time let us take a look at Atletico Madrid.

Shared His­tory: While every­thing but the teams’ names may have changed this is not the first meet­ing between the two in Cham­pi­ons League action (when it was still the Euro­pean Cup). One must look back to the 1958–59 sea­son, a year after Schalke’s 7th and most recent cham­pi­onship. Atletico defeated Schalke 4–1 on aggre­gate in the quar­ter­fi­nals of the com­pe­ti­tion. Fur­ther­more the two share a com­mon foe in Bay­ern Munich. Atletico were unfor­tu­nate not to win the 1973/74 Euro­pean Cup final, Georg Schwarzenbeck’s late (119′) equal­izer lead­ing to a replay and the first of Bayern’s three con­sec­u­tive Euro­pean Cup tri­umphs. Schalke’s own run-ins with Bay­ern have been well-documented and need not be rehashed here.

Domes­tic Pedi­gree: 9-time La Liga cham­pi­ons, and runners-up a fur­ther 8 more. 17-time Copa del Rey final­ists (emerg­ing vic­to­ri­ous 9 times). They are La Liga’s third most suc­cess­ful club, although Real Madrid and Barcelona are in no fear of being over­taken any­time soon.

Euro­pean Glory: Win­ners of the 1961–62 UEFA Cup Win­ners’ Cup and los­ing final­ists the fol­low­ing sea­son. Euro­pean suc­cess has been fleet­ing ever since. A slight devi­a­tion saw Atletico reach the Cup Win­ners’ Cup final once again in 1985–1986, but lose deci­sively to a Oleg Blokhin-led Dynamo Kiev 3–0.

Pre­dic­tion: Schalke’s a good team, at least domes­ti­cally. Unfor­tu­nately Bun­desliga squads in gen­eral have per­formed poorly in Europe over the past sev­eral years. If the tal­ent alone were equal the psy­cho­log­i­cal weight of Euro­pean medi­oc­rity would be enough to choose Atletico Madrid. There is a def­i­nite tal­ent dis­par­ity between the two squads, deci­sively favor­ing Los Roji­blan­cos. Tal­ent alone won’t win games, but it’s often the best indi­ca­tor of success.

Atletico beat Schalke 04 4–2 on aggregate.

Tagged as: Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Copa del Rey, Cup Winners' Cup, Dynamo Kiev, European Cup, FC Bayern München, FC Twente, Georg Schwarzenbeck, Oleg Blokhin, Real Madrid, Spain, Steve McClaren