Atletico Madrid salvaged a late draw with Champions League winners Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup.
James Rodriguez broke the deadlock with a weak deflected that was suspiciously going wide before Raúl García poked in the equaliser two minutes from time.
Real dominated possession for the entirety of the game with the first half played out very cautiously. Atletico registered all three shots on target with Mario Mandzukic and Saúl Ñíguez testing Iker Casillas. The best chance of the half fell to the Croat who tried to unsuccessfully loop a shot over Casillas who was off his line during a scramble in the box, only for the Spaniard to gratefully clutch the ball in his arms.
For Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo had their only real chance of note when he headed a cross just wide of Moya’s left hand post. The Portuguese was largely ineffective in the first half and was overshadowed by Gareth Bale on the opposite wing. The Welshman forced new signing Guilherme Siqueira into a foul early on for which he was booked. Siqueira had to be taken off in the second half after he committed another foul on the former Spurs player and was as a result walking on a tight rope.
The Golden Ball winner was replaced by the £63 million Colombian for the second half and he was in the right place at the right time after 80 minutes on the clock to turn home Karim Benzema‘s blocked shot past debutant goalkeeper Miguel Ángel Moyà.
Some ten minutes before Real finally got on the scoresheet, Moya had punched out Bale’s low freekick straight to Kroos and the German somehow contrived to blaze his volley over with the goal at his mercy.
Atletico though went for broke after going behind and got their reward with Garcia turning in a loose ball from Koke‘s corner which the Madrid defenders had failed to deal with. Casillas was furious with his defence but Atletico got their precious away goal ahead of the return match two days later at the Vicente Calderon.