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This was in my opinion, the best match that took place on Saturday. Both Barcelona and Atletico Madrid are 2 of the main teams in Spain, and they have both played Champions League finals in the past decade. Atletico Madrid is the current La Liga champion, and Barcelona is the team that has won the most leagues in the past 10 years. This match is almost as important as the well-known "El Clasico" between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Atletico Madrid is usually the team that finishes in third position in the league, but sometimes they finish in the second position and on some occassions they finish in the first position and become the new champions. This is a team that has improved a lot since Simeone became their coach, and they haven't stopped growing and improving ever since.

Barcelona is currently going through a very troubling situation. Their finances are completely bankrupted, and they recently lost the biggest star in their history, Messi, who went to play for PSG, which is a state club that has no problem paying him a high salary, something that wasn't possible anymore in Barcelona. Besides losing Messi, Griezmann also left the team, and ironically he went back to Atletico, which was his previous team. I thought Griezmann was going to become the new leader in Barcelona after Messi left, but surprisingly he went back to his old team. Barcelona has been unable to sign major stars, and their collective performance isn't as high as in previous years. I would say their best player right now is Depay, who is a perfectly good striker but I believe Barcelona has gotten used to even better performances.

Compared to Barcelona, Atletico Madrid is currently a bit better. They won the league last year, and their squad hasn't gotten weaker, in fact, with Griezmann I believe they are now even stronger than last year.

This was certainly an exciting match between 2 great teams and I had a great time watching it.

How was the match?

During the beginning, it was a very even and disputed match with no clear dominant team. Barcelona had a bit more ball possession but no team was creating important attacking plays. Felix and Depay were the 2 most active attacking players on their corresponding teams since the beginning of the match.

I was surprised to see Griezmann on the bench in such an important match. Since he first left Atletico a couple of years ago to join Barcelona, it seemed like his confidence took a hit and he went from being Atletico's star to being a player that sometimes was left on the bench in Barcelona. Now he came back to his old team, he once again is on the bench during an important match. This would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago.

There were no great goal attempts in the first 20 minutes, a few shots from outside the area, and a couple of approaches but nothing extremely dangerous. Maybe because both teams were really cautious of each other, neither of them wanted to lose this match because this would leave the losing team in a very difficult situation at the league table.

The first goal happened around the 23-minute mark, Felix made a great move towards the center of the pitch, he did a regular pass to Suarez, he then immediately passed the ball to Lemar who was sprinting straight towards the goalkeeper with no defensive player properly covering him. Once Lemar receives the ball, he finds himself in front of the goalkeeper, and he simply makes a crossed shot and the ball went in. The goal was an excellent collective play between those 3 players and was extremely frustrating to Barcelona. So much so, that Pique and Busquets, 2 of Barcelona's captains, discussed the goal for around 1 minute.

If that goal didn't generate enough doubts for Barcelona, 5 minutes later Atletico almost scores their second one, but Suarez missed an easy shot alone in front of the goalkeeper. Before this goal attempt, Coutinho almost tied the match with a great shot when the ball got to him by mere chance during a Barcelona attack. The goal certainly activated the match and made it much more intense and entertaining.

After the goal, Barcelona naturally became much more active in their attacks. They tried time and time again to score the tie, and they attempted a lot of crosses into the area. However, Luuk de Jong was left on the bench. This player is a very tall striker and if their strategy was to just cross balls into the area, then having Luuk on the pitch would have been a good idea, but for some reason, he was on the bench.

After many of the attacking plays that Barcelona attempted after the goal, around the 44-minute mark there was a great and orderly counterattack by Atletico. The players that participated in this play were the same ones from the first goal. Felix did a very intelligent move and passed to Lemar, who found himself with only 1 defensive player in front of him, and Suarez free of mark with enough space to receive a comfortable pass. He passes the ball to Suarez and like the terrific striker that he is, he calmy makes a good shot right in front of the goalkeeper and it went in.

Both of Atletico's goals were excellent plays involving Felix, Lemar, and Suarez, and after seeing how good they combined with each other and played together, I know kind of understand why Griezmann is on the bench but it still surprised me that Simeone decided to sent Tripper to the pitch in exchange of De Paul and leave Griezmann on the bench when the second half started. I am not sure if Griezmann is injured but it is surprising to see such a player on the bench for so many minutes during this important match.

During the first half, Atletico had a terrific performance and proved they are currently a better team than Barcelona, which is suffering from a lot of defensive dysfunctionalities and poor coordination. Barcelona's technical staff tried to fix some of these issues by sending Nico to the bench and Sergi Roberto to the pitch when the second half started, but I believe the damage was already done and I don't think Nico, who is a very young player, by the way, should be held responsible for Atletico's goals.

Around the 60 minute mark, Barcelona had their best goal attempt in the match so far. It was a counterattack started by Gavi, who managed to intercept 2 consecutive passes, and this allowed them to arrive at Atletico's area with 1 extra man. He passed the ball to Coutinho who was alone with no defensive player near him, and as he was trying to accommodate his body to make a proper shot, Atletico's goalkeeper and several defenders covered the entire net which resulted in the shot being stopped by the goalkeeper. Barcelona's play was well-done, but Atletico's defensive reaction was world-class, and they managed to successfully neutralize this dangerous play.

Shortly after this play, Barcelona did an interesting substitution, they sent Coutinho to the bench, and Ansu Fati went inside the pitch. Fati is a promising young player who suffered a long-term injury last year, and he just recently returned to official matches around 2 weeks ago. Before his injury, he proved to be a terrific striker with the potential to become one of the best in the world. However, long-term injuries can really affect a player, so it is a matter of time to see if he can recover his world-class performance.

Griezmann didn't enter the pitch until the 71-minute mark when he and Correa went it while Felix and Suarez went out to the bench. This change allowed Atletico to keep fresh players in the attack as the final minutes were approaching. Their fresh legs gave positive results only a couple of minutes later, when thanks to a defensive mistake by Araujo, Griezmann managed to arrive at Barcelona's area with a positional advantage, but when it was time to gave the pass to Correa, he did a horrible one and the ball was lost. It could have been Atletico's third goal, but that horrible pass screwed the play.

Atletico was a bit comfortable with their 2 goal advantage, so there wasn't any stress on their part. Barcelona was the one with the obligation to take the initiative, but despite their efforts, they were unable to produce any goal. Even after doing more aggressive substitutions when they sent Mingueza, who is a defensive player, to the bench and Luuk de Jong to the pitch, the tall striker I mentioned before. At the same moment, they also sent Gavi out and Riqui Puig in, who are 2 very similar players so there wasn't a big strategic change substituting one with the other. Even though Barcelona was making aggressive substitutions, their attacks always failed.

Barcelona controlled the ball throughout the match but that was of little help thanks to their lack of creativity when generating attacking plays and Atletico's world-class defensive performance.

The match ended with Barcelona having their defensive line in the midfield, and pretty much all of Atletico on defensive roles in order to protect their 2 goal advantage. Barcelona simply had no way of scoring against Atletico Madrid, and the resignation could be seen in many of their faces towards the end of the match.

This important defeat leaves Barcelona in a very complicated situation, they are currently in position #9 in the Spanish league, they have only won 1 match of the last 6, and this coupled with their circumstances in the Champions League, where they have lost both matches 3-0 each, means that this team is probably going through their worst crisis in decades. It would be a catastrophe for them to not finish at least in the top 4 of the Spanish league, and the same can be said if they don't qualify for the Round of 16 in the Champions League. They still have time to improve, but their short-term future isn't looking promising in the least.

Atletico Madrid on the other hand is safely in the top 4 positions of the Spanish league and this victory will certainly give them an emotional boost for the coming weeks.

What's next?

I plan to watch Real Madrid's game tomorrow vs Espanyol, and after this weekend, the matches with clubs will stop for 2 weeks because the national teams will be playing several matches. I haven't decided yet if I will be watching one of those, but I probably will try to watch the one with the best teams.

Thanks for reading!