Atletico Madrid vs FC Barcelona: 5 things to look forward to 

#1 Will Los Colchoneros manage to stop Lionel Messi?

Messi against Atletico: Only one winner

How do you stop this man? Tackle him, pressurize him, pull him down, somehow he keeps going. Against Real Betis, it was just his return from injury, yet he was the Man of the Match. The through ball that bypassed the defense, just as good as his performance. Filipe Luis found out the hard way last time, that trying to force him off the ball is digging for fool's gold. Pressing him doesn't solve anything. Players surrounding him have to be stopped because he cannot be.

Think back to the time when Simeone did not celebrate Torres' goal. Why? He said in his interview itself that he saw Messi warming up. That is the fear that this man creates, not only on the pitch but also on the benches. Stopping Messi is easier said than done, so Atletico should think of stopping the team as a whole rather than just Messi.

Teams have tried to man-mark him but in vain. Poor Pablo Maffeo was running for 90 minutes when he marked Messi last season. Messi doesn't stay still, he just walks around the pitch so rapidly that you have to keep up. He changes his tempo very quickly from walking to sprinting straight at the defense. French people claimed that Kante stopped him, but if he did, then still the little man ended up getting two assists and a lot of dribbles past him.

Moreover, Atletico Madrid is one of Messi favorite teams to score against. 28 goals in total against them, 23 of them have been scored in the league. Even with such a great defense, he broke their barriers with a single-freekick. Over the jumping Diego Costa, just inches past Jan Oblak's fingers. It is not that Costa did not jump high enough or Oblak didn't dive, it is just that ability to somehow score.

This season, Messi has not been out of form in the majority of the games. Oscar De Marcos from Athletic Bilbao could give some lessons of how to stop Messi. Just stop the person whom the pass is intended to. Messi put Suarez and Coutinho in a lot in the Athletic Barcelona game but De Marcos put both of them under pressure leading to their respective misses.

We all know whom Simeone considers the Best in the World but he has to find a way to stop him now. How exactly? Wanda Metropolitano has the answer on Saturday.