What was all the worry in Madrid about? Once again Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid, having started the Champions League group stage slowly, came through it in the end, and Diego Simeone's Atletico Madrid also secured its place in the knockout stage, with the two Spanish capital powers avoiding a humiliating fate.
Real Madrid, which entered Wednesday with the potential of finishing anywhere from first to last in its group, wound up topping it, after everything, with a 2-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach, while Atletico secured its place as the runner-up in its group behind Bayern Munich with a 2-0 at Salzburg.