Atletico Madrid 1-1 FC Barcelona: 5 takeaways

The Wanda Metropolitano stood host to a top of the table encounter between FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid on Saturday night. The much-anticipated match ended in a 1-1 draw after Real Madrid had already lost at the Ipurua.

The match, as expected was between Atletico Madrid's solid defence and FC Barcelona's attack. The Blaugrana side controlled much of the possession but could not get goals to show for it. It was Atletico Madrid who took the lead through a corner kick pushed in by Diego Costa but the resilient Barcelona struck back at the dead to level things up.

With yesterday's draw, Barcelona and Atletico both stay at 1st and 2nd positions in the league table respectively. But with both sides dropping points Sevilla now have the opportunity to take up the top spot.

Atletico faces Monaco at home next while Barcelona is set to travel across the country to Eindhoven.

Here are five talking points from the game.

#5 Possession without penetration for Barcelona

Club Atletico de Madrid v FC Barcelona - La Liga

FC Barcelona had possession. They controlled possession for almost the entirety of the game with Atletico only having 30% of the ball. However, possession without purpose is useless as Barcelona found out.

With the ball with them for the majority of the game, Barcelona should have scored at least two goals. But thanks to some solid defence from Atletico and lack of attempt from Barcelona, they only scored a solitary goal, that too was the equalizer.

Normally we see Barcelona threading through balls, hitting the wings and making the midfield run around. But Atletico did not fall into the trap and stood composed. Barcelona did not realize that possession alone would not matter to a team who is always looking to defend deep.

Barcelona did not have many shots from close range with the exception of the Dembele goal. They failed to try from long range as well which could have been the only choice against an overloaded box defence. In the end, Barcelona had 70% possession but only two shots on target.

#4 4-4-2 fails to deliver for Barcelona

Vidal should have been better in a 4-3-3 midfield

Valverde managed to raise a few eyebrows with his 4-4-2 formation. He started with Sergi Roberto as one of the wide midfielders while Vidal was the other wide midfielder. 4-4-2 has not been used yet by Valverde this season and it turned out to be a tactical misstep.

Vidal clearly isn't as good a player in the wider areas as he is in the middle of the park. Vidal would have been much better through the middle of the park with his physical attributes. He does not have the pace that a wide midfielder requires but he does have the power to retain the ball against stubborn defences and play in the open man while being under pressure.

Sergi Roberto out wide was not the worst option but Roberto failed to deliver yesterday. Valverde failed to realize his mistake even when Sergi pulled his hamstring. He substituted Rafinha with the same formation. Much like Vidal, Rafinha too is not the best of wide players. He failed to create any effective runs through the defence.

But when Dembele was introduced wide there was something more potent about Barcelona's attacks. They played better in the 10 minutes that Dembele was on the pitch than the 80 minutes that he wasn't. This exposed the fact that Barcelona indeed should have started with a 4-3-3 with Dembele out wide. His pace was really frightening for the defence and pace is what pulled the defence out of their comfort zone.

Valverde was given a lesson on how to deal with defensive teams in the last 10 minutes itself by his own substitution. Hopefully, he will improve on his tactics at least from the experience.

#3 Diego Costa breaks goal-scoring duck

After failing to score in the LaLiga for 9 long months, Diego Costa finally broke his goal-scoring drought by heading in against FC Barcelona. While Atleti had a plan about defending the whole game and hitting on the counter they did not make most of it.

The goal they scored was by Costa's not-so venomous header. It should have been a routine save for Marc-Andre Ter Stegen but he was so worried about a header to the ground and was caught off balance. So the goal came off the mistake by the Barcelona #1 rather than a good set piece.

They failed to convert all the other set pieces when they knew Barcelona have a weakness defending against the high balls. When they won possession, they barely completed two passes before someone pinched it. They had a brilliant opportunity from Griezmann's run through the right side but Pique managed to put Diego Costa off.

This is Barcelona's defence at its weakest and a failure to penetrate their wings while the full-backs are wide in the forward areas is a concern. Barcelona would not spare these mistakes usually but Wanda's pitch had its impact too.

These failures at attacking end would not help Atletico in the long run. They better strap up and attack with more intent. As Cruyff said, "You need to shoot in order to score". Atleti had 3 shots on goal in the whole game. They could have had a lot more if they were better on the counter.

#2 No Messi magic at the Wanda Metropolitano

A rare bad day for the Argentine magician

Barcelona's star man was the man of the match award due to his passing accuracy and dribbles. He also assisted the goal of Ousmane Dembele. But in spite of the fact that he was the man of the match, it was a poor day at the office for the diminutive Argentine.

He dropped deep to collect the ball several times but could do little to break the Atleti defence down. He had no successful through balls yesterday which is the prime reason for him being a dangerous playmaker. He also missed some good chances from a suitable range from the free-kicks.

Moreover, we missed Messi's trademark outside of the box left-foot curler. Atleti held their shape and the only thing to be done was to take long shots but that did not happen. Messi's link-up play with Suarez and Alba was miserable as well.

During some intense moments, it seemed as if he tried too hard, all by himself while he could have just played the extra pass. One glaring mistake from Messi was trying to take on the defender when he could have played a through ball to set Malcom free on a 1v1.

It was not horrendous from Messi but it is surely the things we expect Messi to do rather than not. We expect Messi to create that magic. Not blaming him alone but he was poor on the night.

#1 Ousmane Dembele shuts up his critics. Again.

The Spanish media seems to have some sort of grudge against Dembele. As of late, they have been reporting about his bad attitude, his failure to turn up on time to training and his complacent attitude. In reality, Valverde himself confirmed that Dembele was never late to training.

With the media rumours spreading, there were also rumours of Dembele being sold to Liverpool. Many experts and pundits criticized him for not paying attention to his game. Valverde threw caution to the wind and put in both Dembele and Malcom to salvage a draw.

Dembele's introduction yielded immediate effect with Filipe Luis clearly failing to keep up with the Frenchman's pace. Atleti's ever-strong defence was dragged out of shape due to the pace from the Frenchman and his high tempo of passing. When Messi had the chance he simply played in the free Frenchman who kept his cool before tucking the ball past Oblak.

The defence which did not press hard till that moment swarmed Messi because Dembele had pulled them out of the comfort zone. And now, it is time his critics take a backseat and see this lad unlocking his full potential.

Edited by Sripad