UEFA Champions League - Barcelona 2-1 Atletico Madrid: 5 talking points
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.
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.