Atletico Madrid 1 Barcelona 2
One hand on the title for Barcelona. With Real Madrid losing earlier on against Mallorca this was the perfect oppurtunity for Hansi Flick’s side to gain a massive advantage in the La Liga title race against a heavily rotated Atletico Madrid side. Atleti had the first big chance of the game as Antoine Griezmann megged Cubarsi then feinted past Araujo giving him a free shot at Joan Garcia but he could only shoot straight at the Barcelona goalkeeper, Barcelona then gained control of the match as Yamal was terrorising Nico Gonzalez at left-back which was a very strange selection from Simeone but it was Atleti that struck first in the 39th minute. Clement Lenglet hit a brilliant long ball over the Barca defence to send Giuliano Simeone clean through on goal who finished brilliantly past Joan Garcia to give Atleti the lead. Barca responed immediatley just two minutes later as a quick one-two between Dani Olmo and Marcus Rashford got the Englishman in behind the Atelti defence and squeezed the ball through the keepers legs to bring the sides all level in the 41st minute, then just before half-time Yamal was found in behind Gonzalez who hacked the teenager down right on the edge of the box with the VAR deeming that Gonzalez prevented a goalscoring oppurtunity sending the Argentinian off.
How did Barcelona finish the game with 11 men? Just 30 seconds into the second half Gerard Martin goes steeming into a challenge with Thiago Almada which does see him win the ball but the follow through catches Almada high up on the ankle with the referee deeming it to be dangerous play and sending Martin off, then the VAR gets involved sending the ref to the monitor to review the decision which actually looks worse in slow-motion as the ref is reviewing the incident. The referee then decides to go against his initial decision and cancel the red card awarding Gerard Martin a yellow for the challenge, a crazy decision in my opinion from the VAR who had no need to get involved after a pretty blatant red card but it left the game 11 v 10 for the second half. Barcelona were struggling to create chances for the majority of the seocnd half but the goal eventually came in the 87th minute as Cancelo found some space in the box to shoot at Juan Musso who’s save came back to Lewandowski who chested home the winner for Barcelona in a controversial second half.
A mesmeric performance from Lamine Yamal. Some of the things Yamal was doing in this game had my jaw on the floor especially in that first half as he was toying with Gonzalez who to be fair to him isn’t even a left-back, the nutmeg followed by the most ridiculous trivela pass I’ve ever seen would have been one of the great assists if Olmo found the net in that first half and it summed up his performance in the game. I’m not sure what Simeone is going to do on Wednesday as Ruggeri who normally plays left-back was terrorised by Yamal at the Camp Nou a few weeks ago and Simeone clearly doesn’t trust him defensivley, it says a lot when your an attacking player that gets man-of-the-match without even getting a goal or an assist but that’s just how good Yamal was today and I’m sure there will be a few sleepless nights ahead for some of them Atleti defenders.
Mind games from Simeone in the team selection. We know by now that Simeone has given up the league a long time ago deciding to focus on the Copa Del Rey and Champions League with the team selection showing that quite clearly today, resting Julian Alvarez, Ademola Lookman, Jose Gimenez and David Hancko who all will probably play on Wednesday along with Marcos Llorente who was suspended for the game. I don’t think you can really take much from this game as to how the tie in the Champions League will go but Barcelona will go in as favourites due to their form at the minute, the advantage that Atelti have is that the first leg is at the Camp Nou so all Simeone’s side have to do is be in the tie for the second leg at the Metro Politano and they stand a chance to go trhough. They were super unlucky tonight with that Barca red card getting overturned as 10 v 10 would have been a completely different game in the second half, all eyes now on Wednesday in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Is the title race over now in Spain? The gap to Real Madrid now stands at seven points with 8 games remaining and you get the feeling that the title is all but wrapped up for Barcelona this season. There is an El Clasico left to play in the league but the title could already be wrapped up by then and is at the Camp Nou were Barcelona are unbeaten all season, I wouldn’t be surprised if Real Madrid started to focus on the Champions League if that gap widens even further as it doesn’t look like Barca are going to falter any time soon in the league. All eyes now go to the Champions League in midweek were both Barcelona and Real Madrid play at home in the first leg and will look to take advantages into the second leg next week.