Described as “Barcelona’s worst nightmare” after the draw for the quarter-finals of the Champions League was made, Atletico Madrid would have approached this game with a lot of self-confidence, the level having especially increased thanks to Real Madrid’s win in the exciting El Clasico over the weekend.
Though the past six meetings between these sides, including this season’s two La Liga encounters, are penciled in as wins for Barcelona, Atletico did eliminate Barcelona at this stage of the competition two seasons ago with the score-line reading 2-1 in the Rojiblancos’ favour over two legs.
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This scoreline was repeated at the Camp Nou but it was Luis Suarez who scored twice in the second-half to overturn Fernando Torres’ goal. Torres was controversially sent off in the first half for picking up two yellow cards, a decision which no doubt influenced the fate of the match.
Here are five major talking points from Barcelona’s 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals-
1) Eerily reminiscent of Atletico's La Liga match at the Camp Nou
Barcelona’s unbeaten run of 39 matches came to an end at the Camp Nou with their 1-2 defeat to Real Madrid in the weekend, but the only other match where they felt they were surely heading for defeat was the all-important La Liga fixture against Atletico Madrid at the Camp Nou on 30 January 2016.
Both these matches were critical - a win in the La Liga fixture would have put Atletico Madrid right in the mix for the title, and a win at the Camp Nou in the quarter-finals would have made Atletico favourites to progress. However, both these matches ended 2-1 in Barcelona’s favour.
As in both these matches, Atletico came out of the blocks fast and hard, and earned a well deserved 1-0 lead. Atletico however, contrived to go a man down and play the majority of the match with 10 men in both ties.
Filipe Luis with his dastardly tackle on Lionel Messi made the job much simpler for the referee on that night, but Fernando Torres’ sending off at the Camp Nou was arguably more debatable.
Atleti couldn’t hold like their city rivals Real did just a couple of nights ago, and Luis Suarez delivered the win for Barcelona.
2) Suarez trumps Griezmann
With inevitable comparisons between Barcelona’s MSN and Real Madrid’s BBC, Luis Suarez has been pitted against Karim Benzema in most media circles. But it is Benzema’s compatriot, Antoine Griezmann of Atletico Madrid who should also feature in these comparisons.
Griezmann and Suarez are similar in the sense that they are virtually never injured. More importantly, Griezmann has had to dovetail his style to meet Diego Simeone’s expectations of a high work-rate and defensive contributions.
He is often seen out wide, away from his preferred central role. He his virtually carrying the Atletico team himself and does not have Suarez’s luxury of playing in between Neymar and Lionel Messi. All this while costing less than Luis Suarez.
But as Spanish La Liga expert Guillem Balague said, to be able to consider himself as a top five player, Griezmann will have to seize the big stage and score in such crunch matches where one golden chance can change the game.
Two chances presented themselves on Tuesday night, but he, unfortunately, couldn’t convert both, whereas Suarez scored two at the other end. One could argue that Suarez was in an easier position with this team having the home and man advantage, but these things don’t matter when you’re in front of goal.
3) Controversial sending off mars the match
It was Filipe Luis on 30 January in the La Liga tie, Sergio Ramos in the weekend and Fernando Torres last night – visiting teams make their job in the daunting Camp Nou tougher by going a man down against a team that seems to be anyways playing with 13 men.
No, I was not talking about the referee, but Barcelona would on their day arguably beat any team in the world - and most days are their days.
Fernando Torres was sent off a few minutes after scoring Atletico’s opener, for two tackles on Neymar and Sergio Busquets. The striker was quick to criticise the referee Felix Brych, and accused him of not being of the standard required in such important fixtures, and wondered why Luis Suarez did not receive similar treatment.
Diego Simeone refused to blame his striker and drew comparisons with last season’s corresponding fixture against Real Madrid. In that match, Arda Turan was sent off by the same referee, which was followed by Javier Hernandez scoring the only goal in the two legs to send Real through.
Luis Enrique though was focused on his team’s inability to score more goals and backed the referee, saying that it was normal for all of Atletico’s fans to criticise the red, and for Barcelona’s fans to see the logic in why Torres was sent off.
4) MSN fail to steer Barcelona through
For the second time in a span of a few days, MSN haven’t been at their very best. Maybe it so happens that they are more often than not at their very best, or if one or two are having an off day, the third delivers the goods for the team.
On another day, Luis Suarez would have also had a red card to his name rather than two goals. Neymar had three decent chances to score. Messi, like in the Clasico, was time and again dropping into the midfield.
This was evident in Luis Enrique’s post-match press conference, where he preferred to complain about his team being unable to score more goals and kill off the tie rather than on the red card incident.
You would be hard-pressed to find any other team being unhappy with a 2-1 win in Europe, but this is Barcelona. With their high standards, this match and the Real Madrid match would be far from satisfactory.
5) All to play for at the Vicente Calderon
For all the debate and fury this match generated, it’s easy to overlook the result of this match. Atletico have the all important away goal, and 2-1 is not an insurmountable deficit.
If they can summon their dogged spirit of determination, which saw them five minutes away from a Champions League crown two seasons ago, a 1-0 win at the Calderon will see them through.
However, keeping a clean sheet against MSN takes a whole lot of doing. Perhaps Simeone can rely on Zinedine Zidane’s leaked tactics sheet from the weekend’s Clasico.
Barcelona are definitely backed to score. The smallest mistakes from their opponents can let in any one of MSN as was apparent from the Arsenal fixture at the Emirates.
However, they don’t need to rely on sneaking in because most of the time they dictate play and score at will. If Luis Enrique can keep his squad fresh enough, a draw or a win at the Calderon will see them ease through.
