AEK Athens FC 2-3 Real Madrid: match review – late Valverde goal ends a stubborn fight

A game that swung late

Real Madrid beat AEK Athens FC 3-2 at the Allwyn Arena in the Champions League on 4 November. The winner came in the 90+2 minute from Federico Valverde.

AEK Athens FC took the lead in the 12th minute through Aboubakary Koita. Jude Bellingham levelled in the 32nd minute, and the sides went in at 1-1.

How the goals came

The second half stayed tight until the 75th minute. Stavros Pilios put AEK Athens FC 2-1 up. Real Madrid needed only three minutes to respond, with Kylian Mbappé scoring in the 78th. Valverde then settled it deep in stoppage time. No red cards were shown.

What the statistics show

The numbers favour the visitors clearly. Real Madrid had 70% of possession and 24 shots, 8 of them on target, and won 7 corners. AEK Athens FC had 30% possession and 9 shots, 5 on target, and no corners.

The expected goals figures point the same way: 3.41 for Real Madrid against 0.95 for AEK Athens FC. The home side were efficient with their chances, but the visitors created far more of them.

Form and table

Real Madrid came in with 5 wins from their last 5 matches, including a 2-1 win at Barcelona and a 3-0 win at Racing Santander on 1 November. They were 5th in the Champions League table with 9 points from 3 games, and this result is their fourth win in the competition.

AEK Athens FC arrived in 27th place with 3 points from 3 games and a goal difference of -5. They had lost 0-2 at Panathinaikos on 1 November, after a 5-0 home win over Panetolikos. Earlier in October they lost 1-5 at Manchester City and 1-3 at Shakhtar Donetsk. Scoring twice here was a positive, but they still finished without points.

Our logged picks

No pick was logged for this match because the numbers were not clear enough. There is therefore no hit or miss to report.