Hello everyone and welcome in to this Atalanta vs Real Madrid live blog for the Italian and Spanish sides' Champions League last 16 first leg. This is the place for all the build-up to the match in Bergamo and then the minute-by-minute updates for the match itself. All of this blog's updates will come underneath the below image, with our most recent entries towards the top.
Atalanta vs Real Madrid LIVE
18:45 CET: The (very depleted) Real Madrid squad
As a result of Real Madrid's ongoing injury crisis, they have a very depleted squad for this match and have had to call up several youth teamers. In total, there are nine first-team players who are absent, namely Daniel Carvajal, Alvaro Odriozola, Marcelo, Eder Militao, Sergio Ramos, Federico Valverde, Rodrygo, Karim Benzema and Eden Hazard.
18:20 CET: An unprecedented match
This will be the first ever match between Real Madrid and Atalanta. They've never met before, although Real Madrid have already been to this part of Italy earlier this season when they travelled to Milan to take on Inter. Their two wins over the Serie A leaders saw them win their group and now Zinedine Zidane's men are looking to conquer more Italian opposition.
18:00 CET: The global kick off times
We're ready for tonight's big game, but when does it start exactly? In Spain, it'll kick off at 21:00 CET, while in the UK that's 20:00 GMT and that's 15:00 ET in the USA. Real Madrid have created a graphic to show what time the match will start in some of the world's biggest cities.
