Atletico Madrid knocked out of Copa del Rey by Celta Vigo

Atletico Madrid's journey in the Copa del Rey is over after suffering a 3-2 at the Vicente Calderon despite carrying an advantage into the second leg of their quarter-final fixture with Celta Vigo, having drawn 0-0 at Balaidos last week. Atletico were without Jan Oblak, Augusto Fernandez and Stefan Savic from their most recent game against Sevilla and Atletico looked decidedly less secure without the Slovenian between the posts, in particular.

Pablo Hernandez opened the scoring with a header from a well worked corner, which was worked short before being swung into the penalty area after just 22 minutes. The Chilean was left relatively free as he headed home much to the shock of the Calderon's faithful.

It would only take seven minutes before Atletico were level when a Yannick Ferreira Carrasco shot was saved by Ruben Blanco only for the rebound to be stroked home by the waiting Antoine Griezmann. Atletico threatened for the remainder of the half but lacked a target man who was willing to get on the end of some very dangerous crosses being put into the box by Juanfran and Carrasco.

While the game was level on the night, Celta Vigo held the edge and Atletico needed another goal to secure entry into the semi-finals of the competition. Any hope of that was put in severe doubt when John Guidetti rifled a shot from 35 yards out into the top corner of Miguel Angel Moya's net on 56 minutes. That hope was all but extinguished just eight minutes later when Atletico left Pablo Hernandez unmarked on the edge of the six yard box. The Chilean headered home between the onlooking Diego Godin and Jose Gimenez leaving Atletico's Copa del Rey dream in tatters.

Angel Correa gave Atletico an inkling of hope when he turned on the edge of the square, dropped his hip and toe poked a shot into the bottom corner of Celta's net but it was too little too late for Simeone's troops. Curiously, Simeone opted to only use two substitutes - one of them being Oliver Torres, which all but rules out a move to Borussia Dortmund this winter - and left Jackson Martinez on the bench.

This could prove to be a blessing for Atletico as they can now focus on their title challenge and the last sixteen of the Champions League. Their has already been worry over their fixture build-up but Simeone and his squad will be disappointed to have missed out on a very real chance at silverware.