Barca show supreme resilience
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To put it bluntly, they didn’t look comfortable when the sides were level throughout the opening 35 minutes and the signs were there that this was going to be a really closely contested affair.
An air of tension hung over the Camp Nou long before the complexion of the tie changed with the sending off and when one considers just how off-colour they were in El Clasico, it is natural to entertain thoughts that the reigning UCL champions might be going through a bit of a trough right now.
We’ll never know how the clash might have panned out had Torres’ temper not got the better of him but a close look at the period when both teams had equal numbers on the pitch suggested that this could potentially have turned out to be Atletico’s night.
Unable to move the ball through midfield the way they wanted to, the hosts were hassled at every potential opportunity by the likes of Gabi, and his work-rate spread like wildfire throughout the team as numerous efforts were made to make Barca as uneasy as possible on the ball.
If Barca are normally an HD stream on a 3D curved television, for the opening half hour on Tuesday their connection came through a boxy old telly and the connection was choppy and interrupted far too often The culprits? Atleti’s niggling play and nuisance interceptions.
As pointed out by Barca’s own Twitter account, the match details told their own story of how much they dominated the encounter, but it could have been a very different story:
Much like the way Barca played against Arsenal in their last-16 continental clashes, this was far from a vintage performance and the faithful culés were forced to suffer as they waited anxiously for one of their superstars to rattle the back of the net. Time and again, they came close to breaking the deadlock with 21 attempts.
Neymar rattled the crossbar in the second half after Lionel Messi had almost conjured something majestic in the 49th minute with a bicycle kick to come oh so close to getting his 500th senior goal. If Atleti’s goal was living a charmed life, the normally magic Messi didn’t seem to have a counter-curse.
Nevertheless, their tireless work-rate, albeit against 10 men, underlined just how much they wanted the win. Recovering loose balls, re-launching attacks and playing with unrelenting energy, they refused to give up – a mentality they’ll need to keep handy for the tricky return leg at the Calderon.
Catalan wide brilliance proves decisive
In contrast to so many of their matches, Barca really had to work very hard to find gaps and space. As already mentioned, this was down to Los Rojiblancos’ work-rate.
Creating a seemingly impenetrable barrier in front of Jan Oblak’s goal, Diego Godin and company were as organised as could be. Drifting with the movement of the ball, they kept tabs on the intricacies of play with unshakeable determination.
Alas for the travelling contingent, however, the apparently immovable object was eventually dislodged from its stubborn grip as Suarez struck twice to further his case as arguably the best no.9 in the game right now.
It wasn’t simply brazen bulldozing that earned the two goals, though, because Barca were intelligently spreading the play wide in an effort to stretch the condensed cover.
Continually, they looked for Jordi Alba on the left flank or Dani Alves on the right and it paid dividends in the end as it was Alves’ cross to Alba that caused the panic inside Atleti’s area for his side’s opening goal.
Indeed, it was the 32-year-old Brazilian right back who again proved the catalyst to set up his Uruguayan team-mate following a sublime one-two for what proved to be the winner in the 74th minute.
Some will say the reigning champions were lucky to claw their way back into contention overall, but it’s almost impossible to argue a convincing case against Torres’ dismissal and the two goals they scored were the result of clever movement of the ball to tire their opponents and hit them with clinical finishing.
Following their slump against Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid, they needed to bounce back with a win and they’ve done that. All eyes on the second leg now. Can Barca make it eight wins on the trot against Atletico?
