Los Blancos progressed to the quarter-finals after beating City rivals Atletico Madrid on penalties on Wednesday (12.03.25) after the last 16 tie finished all square at 2-2 on aggregate and the midfielder lauded the club's ability to survive in Europe's top competition.

Bellingham told TNT Sports: "That's sometimes what it takes, those moments of composure and poise. It's not always the mad quality that you see from us.

"There is a change of mentality when we come into these games, we know that there's a certain way of winning games.

"We're very good at that. We understand game situations really well, and tonight was another example."

Real had a big slice of luck as Julian Alvarez's penalty for Atletico was disallowed in the shootout after he slipped and illegally kicked the ball twice but Bellingham says the triumph was made even sweeter by the fact that it came against their local rivals.

The England international said: "Really happy. It's a huge game for us to win. It's massive for us, so important for us to get through at this stage. It will mean a lot to the fans because of who we were playing against."

Real manager Carlo Ancelotti admits that he was relieved rather than ecstatic to go through after his side had lost 1-0 on the night.

The coach told reporters: "I have tried to explain to my players that the priority was not to make the game more complicated than it already was.

"We made it more difficult by losing unnecessary balls that constantly found us out of position... If they scored 2-0, then the game could have got out of control... We played better as the game progressed, had our chances, but we need to improve in our focus and concentration.

"We always have to look for improvement. The tie was evenly matched and a mistake could have been costly. We wanted to finish the game before penalties, sure, but here we are, still fighting and in contention, as is customary at this club."