Kickoff: 21:00 CET / 20:00 GMT / 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT
Venue: Estadio Olimpico Lluis Companys
Referee: Juan Maria Sanchez Martinez
Lineups:
Barcelona: Inaki Pena - Joao Cancelo, Andreas Christensen, Ronald Araujo, Jules Kounde - Frenkie de Jong, Ilkay Gundogan, Pedri - Joao Felix, Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha
Subs: Ander Astralaga, Diego Kochen, Alejandro Balde, Inigo Martinez, Oriol Romeu, Sergi Roberto, Ferran Torres, Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez
Atleti: Jan Oblak - Rodrigo Riquelme, Mario Hermoso, Axel Witsel, Jose Maria Gimenez, Nahuel Molina - Rodrigo de Paul, Koke, Marcos Llorente - Antoine Griezmann, Alvaro Morata
Subs: Ivo Grbic, Antonio Gomis, Cesar Azpilicueta, Caglar Soyoncu, Stefan Savic, Reinildo Mandava, Saul Niguez, Javi Galan, Memphis Depay, Angel Correa, Samuel Lino
Match Events:
1’ - Pedri passes to Raphinha who completes a set of dribbles and gets through the defense, but his shot goes across the box
6’ - Raphinha sets up Lewandowski, but the Pole’s header is poor
12’ - Kounde centers to Lewandowski whose shot is way off target
28’ - Joao Felix wins a duel against Moline then chips the ball over Oblak. Barcelona 1, Atleti 0 – link
31’ - Yellow card for Gimenez
34’ - Yellow card for Witsel
38’ - Yellow card for Koke
44’ - Gundogan centers to Joao Felix who gets a good shot from close range but Oblak positions himself well for the save
45+3’ - End of half
45’ - Substitution for Atleti: Correa, Lino and Azpilicueta on for Rodrigo Riquelme, Gimenez and Molina respectively
47’ - Yellow card for Azpilicueta
50’ - Yellow card for Joao Felix
58’ - Raphinha hits the right post from outside the box
61’ - Llorente centers to Morata who shoots the ball into Inaki Pena from point-blank range
65’ - Substitution for Atleti: Memphis and Saul on for Morata and Koke respectively
77’ - Substitution for Barcelona: Lamine Yamal and Ferran Torres on for Raphinha and Ferran Torres respectively
78’ - Yellow card for Ferran Torres
79’ - Yellow card for Araujo
80’ - Inaki Pena with a tremendous effort to push Memphis’s free kick onto the crossbar
86’ - Lewandowski beats Hermoso with a great dribble then aims for the corner flag instead of the goal
87’ - Yellow card for Cancelo
89’ - Substitution for Barcelona: Fermin Lopez on for Pedri
90+3’ - Yellow card for Frenkie de Jong
90+4’ - The ball bounces to Correa who shoots the ball right into Inaki Pena
90+5’ - End of game. Barcelona 1, Atleti 0
Match Stats - via Livescore.com
| Barcelona | Atleti :–:|:–:|:–: xG | 2.36 | 0.71 xA | 2.01 | 0.81 Possession | 59% | 41% Shots on target | 2 | 3 Shots off target | 7 | 4 Blocked shots | 4 | 3 Corner kicks | 7 | 2 Offsides | 1 | 4 Fouls | 17 | 12 Yellow Cards | 5 | 4 Red Cards | 0 | 0
Standings:
Team | GP | W | L | T | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Real Madrid | 15 | 12 | 1 | 2 | 33 | 9 | +24 | 38 |
Girona | 15 | 12 | 1 | 2 | 34 | 18 | +16 | 38 |
Barcelona | 15 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 28 | 14 | +14 | 34 |
Atletico Madrid | 14 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 30 | 13 | +17 | 31 |
Athletic Club | 15 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 30 | 18 | +12 | 28 |
Real Sociedad | 15 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 26 | 18 | +8 | 26 |
Real Betis | 15 | 6 | 2 | 7 | 18 | 16 | +2 | 25 |
Las Palmas | 15 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 21 |
Valencia | 15 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 17 | 20 | -3 | 19 |
Getafe | 15 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 17 | 20 | -3 | 19 |
Rayo Vallecano | 15 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 16 | 22 | -6 | 19 |
Villarreal | 15 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 22 | 26 | -4 | 16 |
Alaves | 15 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 14 | 19 | -5 | 16 |
Osasuna | 15 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 17 | 25 | -8 | 15 |
Sevilla | 14 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 13 |
Mallorca | 15 | 1 | 6 | 8 | 13 | 20 | -7 | 11 |
Cadiz | 14 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 11 | 21 | -10 | 11 |
Celta Vigo | 14 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 14 | 24 | -10 | 8 |
Granada | 15 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 19 | 35 | -16 | 7 |
Almeria | 15 | 0 | 11 | 4 | 16 | 37 | -21 | 4 |
Upcoming Fixtures:
Barcelona: vs Girona, 12.10, 21:00 CET
Atleti: vs Almeria, 12.10, 14:00 CET
Let me know if there are any mistakes, or if there’s something you want me to change
What a shitshow of a match. The state of refereeing in LaLiga is just sad.
João Félix is payback for the Griezmann, David Villa and Suarez scams Atlético pulled on Barça
Missed the last two due to the unfortunate match time and a busy tuesday night. But back again, and its a good match, was one of the best this season for sure (minus the wasted chances at building a solid lead).
Looking at the starting lineup, this is likely the best version of this team right now. Maybe Balde back in on the left and Cancelo on the right, with Christensen/Araujo/Kounde in the middle. But Balde has not been in form for a while now, so Cancelo is rightfully prefered right now on the left.
I have said it multiple times before but I think Kounde as a RB works better than Araujo does offensively. If there is a big threat (Vinicius for example), then sure you can put Araujo there to stiffle it, but Kounde just brings that little bit more offensively.
This was one of Gundo’s best matches so far in a Barcelona shirt. He was involved, he was dictating the play, he was bossing the midfield together with Frenkie. He played a lot more from deep and I have been begging for him to do this since basically his first match lol. He got a bit sloppy towards the end, might be because he was getting tired out there, but his first half was excellent.
Which brings me to Frenkie, he is absolutely world class. He elevates every single other midfielder and makes them better. He even made Romeu playable at first by covering his weaknesses. (Up until the opponents realized he is slow and thus a vulnerable point of pressure. Now they legit just rush him whenever he plays and his flaws are being abused out there so he won’t likely see many minutes).
He is always available to give the ball when you are under pressure and he can make up for mistakes with his positioning. He is legit everywhere! He is the most important player in the team and crucial to making Xavi’s system tick.
Cancelo on left brings a threat on the wings with his penetration dribbling, and his crosses are a lot better than Balde’s. Balde has been lacking in a final product for a while now and his dribble penetration has also slowed down (more game time means more time spend analysing his moves by opponents in preparation. He seems to be a bit predictable out there and he likely needs some time to adjust and increase his bag of tricks.)
Raphinha is as industrious as ever, and while he isn’t beating his man as reliably as a Yamal does, he connects better with the team and doesn’t make many selfish decisions (which Yamal has been getting prone to do lately. He is young though so his decision making will improve.)
Lewa… I dont know man, maybe its the age catching up to him. He has just been rough this season. He connected a bit better and his touch atleast looked somewhat reliable (in comparison to his amateurish first touch in previous games), but he fluffed at chances quite a bit.
Its looking good that despite Pedri not even being anywhere near his best in my opinion, he looked a lot better than he has been since his return from injury. Imagine if he gets it going again, he already showed glimpses of his ability today.
Tactically I think the strategy was kill their build up play, win the ball high and slow it down. Usually you see in high press that when the pressing team wins the ball they immediately try to hit them back with a decisive pass, but it looked deliberate that whenever Barcelona won the ball back they chose to retain possession and patiently look for a opening instead. This lowers the tempo of the game, which I think better suited Barcelona. They had good movement, immediately highlighting Frenkie Pedri and Gundo here for this part. They poked and prodded at that defence untill they found either a opening or Raphinha/Felix got enough space to do their own thing. Lots of short,quick combinations between them to pull midfielders/defenders out of position.
I think the subs Simeone did helped a lot in countering the game plan laid out by Xavi today, and Xavi didn’t really react. He subbed out for fresher legs but same gameplan. I think he was just trying to hold on to the 1-0, let Atleti push up more and then abuse the space left behind by Atleti. (This should have led to the 2-0 a lot earlier, but the biggest example of this is the Fermin/Yamal breakout late in the game that got snuffed with a potential penalty shout.)
Overall though I am quite happy with this match and the way Barcelona played. Yes they had to suffer a bit in the second half, but they should have arguably burried this match in the first half atleast 3-0. The defence withstood the second half test, which was badly needed with how shaky the defence has been this season. I think its a turning point going forward, barring injuries.
Atleti always open their legs against Barcelona - with transfers and matches
Ref should consider rope
Didn’t expect a win tbh
Can’t wait for all Atleti haters to use this first half to go ‘See? I told you Simeone was a football terrorist’
Lewandowski should be benched. Less said about his recent performances, the better.
Amazing match by Pena
Barce1:0na reign continues
MATS has competition now
ref tried his best to give the game to atletico with those 3 “fouls” at the top of the box. thank god we won. what a game we played.
lewy was god awful tho, and kounde NEEDS to accept that he’s our best right back.
Holy shit, I have been clenching not because of Atleti, but because of this fking ref.
Lewandisney 🇵🇱
What does a goalie need to do in order to win man of the match? Peña was worth several goals today