Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid: 3 reasons why Barcelona won | LaLiga 2018/19

#1 Individual brilliance from Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi

Messi scored his quintessential solo goal and this time it was Godin and Gimenez who were floored by the Argentine.

As a team, Barcelona was not better than the 10-man Atleti team. Atleti had a better gameplan, better attitude, better body-language, everything. The fatigue took its toll on Atleti's players as Simeone threw caution to the wind playing an auxiliary left and right-back and making attacking substitutions.

Barcelona couldn't penetrate the defence of Atleti even once in the night apart from the shot off the post from Alba, and the 1v1 for Coutinho. Lionel Messi had five shots on target all of which were gobbled up by the giant Jan Oblak.

But something had to give on the night and Luis Suarez did. Receiving the ball from Alba in the space in front of the box, Suarez dribbled Partey and released a bullet strike from the almost 20 yards out. He curled the ball into the bottom corner, past the full stretch of a 6ft tall Jan Oblak, past the man who was unbeatable on the night.

A minute later, Ivan Rakitic intercepted the ball and played Lionel Messi in near the halfway line. The diminutive Argentine dribbled quickly into the box, sent Jose Gimenez to the floor while he tried to tackle, then went across the face of the goal and sent Diego Godin to the floor, and then froze Oblak where he and passed the ball into the net.

It happened against Villarreal mid-week and it happened against Atleti yesterday. This team has the players who could get the win in the direst of circumstances.