Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid score: Casemiro and Dani Carvajal fire Zinedine Zidane's side to victory

A 2-0 win for Real Madrid drew them within three points of their rivals in the Spanish capital

Real Madrid cruised to a dominant 2-0 win over Atletico Madrid at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano that drew the La Liga champions within three points of their crosstown rivals at the top of the table.

Casemiro's first half header was the least Real Madrid deserved for a dominant first half against an Atleti side that looked a shadow of the team who had claimed top spot in La Liga without defeat. It took Dani Carvajal's wonderful volley, credited as an own goal to Jan Oblak after it bounced off the post, back onto the goalkeeper and into the net, to bring the visitors to life but despite a late flurry, Zinedine Zidane's side never looked like conceding defeat.

Recap the key talking points below

Madrid get their swagger back

When the 22 players take the pitch does it matter that Real Madrid have gone almost five years without a loss to Atleti in La Liga? After all, half of Zidane's starting lineup today were in in the team that were beaten by an Antoine Griezmann goal in February 2016. Certainly on the evidence of tonight, Real Madrid knew that this game was won within a few minutes.

They had rediscovered their best form in stuttering steps over this crucial week: doing just enough to win at Sevilla, getting the job done in professional fashion against Borussia Monchengladbach and here stamping their authority on their rivals.

Players that have seemed inhibited for so much of this season moved with an arrogance that we saw from them in their pomp. In challenges Sergio Ramos and Rafael Varane hit hard. Lucas Vazquez's immediate response to the ball coming his way was to drive at Mario Hermoso, knowing that he had Dani Carvajal pushed high up the pitch alongside him.

Meanwhile Toni Kroos and Luka Modric did not look like they share 65 years between them as they glided across midfield. In no small part that was because Atletico simply refused to press these two veterans. On the rare occasion Kroos in particular came under pressure he looked like what he has been of late, a player who can be unsettled when the game is played at high pace.

Atleti would have been aware of that. They seemed far too hesitant, too respectful of Madrid to get in their faces, a most atypical response from a Diego Simeone side. Little wonder that he chose to make three changes at the interval.

But you sensed that whoever he threw into the fray would not make much difference to how Real Madrid approached this game. This was institutional muscle memory, the reigning champions swatting aside the little upstarts from the other side of town because that's what they do.

A tale of two strikers

Fresh from carrying his side to the Champions League knockout rounds Karim Benzema was as swaggering as any player in white. The player who spent so many years working in the service of other forwards is relishing his Indian summer as Real Madrid's leading man.

When the chance came to shoot he did so with ferocity and it took the finest of margins to deny Benzema when two chances came his way in the 10th minute. A vicious shot from the edge of the box drew the sort of diving save from Jan Oblak that only Oblak makes. Then Luiz Felipe got the faintest of touches to a cross from the right, causing Madrid's No.9 to get his feet in something of a tangle. But for those touches he would have surely scored.

What makes Benzema so admirable as a forward, though, is how he offers more than just scoring. With the likes of Kroos and Modric around him he still might have pulled off the pass of the night just before the interval, judging a through ball to Ferland Mendy perfectly. This was all-round center forward play that is perfectly suited to a top team.

Compare that to the other No.9, a shadow of himself. It did not help Luis Suarez that his team-mates had him chasing long balls that he lacks the legs to reach but equally he was giving them little else to work with. 

He did not drop deep to build up play, was not trying to dart in between Rafael Varane and Sergio Ramos and did not press. He rarely, if ever, broke out in much beyond a jog. 

Even Thibaut Courtois (29) touched the ball more than Suarez (23) and it was not like the Real Madrid goalkeeper was facing a string of shots - it wasn't until the 55th minute Atleti managed an effort on the Madrid goal. It rather felt that Simeone had opted to play with one man fewer across most of the game in the hope that if the ball broke to Suarez in the box he would score.

It was a gamble that emphatically failed and could have consequences that last beyond the game. In particular Joao Felix was furious and perplexed when he, rather than Suarez, was withdrawn for Saul on the hour. As he took his seat in the Alfredo Di Stefano stands he seemed to be on the verge of tears. 

Felix had worked to advance Atletico up the field but so often looked up to see nothing to work with, no-one making the run ahead of him. This was not the Suarez we have come to know.

A note on goal scoring aesthetics

When Dani Carvajal hits a ball as sweetly as he did in the 63rd minute surely it deserves to fly into the net with its path unobstructed? No, not really.

You're very much entitled to disagree but great art is great because of its imperfections. You can find any number of smoothly hit volleys where the ball fizzes home in style but will you remember them in quite the same way as you will this one, a gorgeous outswinger that clatters back off the post and onto the back of the best goalkeeper in the world? I doubt it.

In that moment Carvajal moved beyond the plane of really good goals to something else entirely. This heady cocktail of the ridiculous and sublime is surely what we all want from this sport.

Notable performances

Dani Carvajal: There was no small fortune in how his volley found the net but he had hit it so sweetly that he deserved to see the ball find the net. Throughout the match Carvajal was excellent in defense, leading the game with five tackles after 80 minutes. RATING: 8

Thomas Lemar: That Atletico ended the game in the ascendancy was in no small part down to the fearless approach the Frenchman took to attacking when he was introduced at the interval. His crossing continually asked questions of the Madrid defense and he was never afraid to run at an opponent when he had possession. RATING: 7

Vincius Junior: This was hardly the Brazilian's most devastating performance in an attacking sense but the fact that Kieran Trippier enjoyed so little joy down the right was a ringing endorsement of Vinicius' work without the ball. RATING: 7

La Liga picture

Atletico remain top of La Liga but will cede first position to Real Sociedad if La Real pick up a point or more at home to Eibar tomorrow. Simeone's side do, however, have at least a game in hand on most of those in La Liga's upper reaches, including Real Madrid. They are now three points off Atleti and sit third in the table.

Recap all the action from our live blog below.

[Dec 12, 2020 at 4:41 pm ET · James Benge]

Lemar has really turned up late in the second half. He is direct in attack, always looking to commit his opponent and willing to press Carvajal when Madrid have possession He and Lodi have turned the left flank into quite the danger zone for Atleti.

[Dec 12, 2020 at 4:25 pm ET · James Benge]

I'm just going to say it, this goal is better because it goes in off the post and Oblak's back.

[Dec 12, 2020 at 4:19 pm ET · James Benge]

This is quite remarkable. Suarez has been atrocious, I've never seen him play this bad. But when the time comes to introduce Saul and replace a striker it's Joao Felix who is taken off and he is furious. He kicks a seat in the stands, he seems on the brink of tears. He has every right to be very unhappy.

[Dec 12, 2020 at 4:14 pm ET · James Benge]

Marcos Llorente, amid all the gloom of this Atleti performance, has been a real standout performer in that he has been adequate at the very least. His low cross just there was better than just adequate, right in that corridor of uncertainty along the six yard line. Casemiro can't reach it, it's too far from Courtois and there's Lemar at the back post. There's not much space to work with as he tries to squeeze it in at the near post, the ball flying into the side netting instead.

[Dec 12, 2020 at 4:03 pm ET · James Benge]

A triple change at the interval from Atleti: in come Lemar, Correa and Lodi. It looks like Felipe, Herrera and Carrasco have made way. It's a complete change of emphasis, expect them to attack with far greater width and numbers. Lemar's first act is to clip Casemiro's ankle with a high boot.