LaLiga 2019/2020: Atletico Madrid 0-1 Barcelona - 5 Talking Points

#1 Lionel Messi the difference maker yet again

Messi was the match winner

Lionel Messi began the current campaign on the sidelines with a calf injury and unsurprisingly, Barcelona struggled in the absence of their talisman.

Since his return, there has been an upturn in the fortunes of the Catalans and against Atletico Madrid, the 32-year-old once again showed why he is rightly regarded as one of the best players in history.

For most of the game, he had threatened but failed to make a real impact on the match as the Atletico defenders and midfielders held their line properly and denied him the space to work his magic.

All that, however, changed in the 86th minute as Lionel Messi picked up the ball some 40 yards away from the Atleti goal before embarking on one of his trademark mazy runs.

When the Rosario native opened up the space for himself and ran directly at the opposition goal, there was an inevitable feeling that a moment of magic was about to happen and that proved to be the case, with Messi skipping past multiple challenges before playing a perfect one-two with Luis Suarez and then unleashing an unstoppable shot past Jan Oblak.

The goal was his 30th from just 39 fixtures against Los Colchoneros to hand Barcelona all three points and while the attention might have unusually been away from him prior to kickoff, Messi made sure he became the topic after the game with another match-winning performance.