LaLiga 2019/2020: Atletico Madrid 0-1 Barcelona - 5 Talking Points

Club Atletico de Madrid v FC Barcelona - La Liga
Club Atletico de Madrid v FC Barcelona - La Liga

Atletico Madrid hosted Barcelona at the Wanda Metropolitano in what was the crunch clash of matchday 15 in LaLiga and the Catalans ran out 1-0 winners in a very tense encounter.

Both teams have regularly contested for the league title in recent years and there was evidence of this growing rivalry, as the two sides went all out for the jugular and produced an exhilarating end-to-end encounter.

Real Madrid had moved posted a hard-fought 2-1 victory away at Alaves on Saturday to move temporarily top of the table, while Sevilla's 1-0 win over Leganes earlier on Sunday meant that Barcelona entered the clash with Atletico in third place and needed a victory to get back on track.

For their part, it has been a bumper few weeks for Atletico Madrid and they have been far from their efficient best, with injuries and a loss of form affecting Diego Simeone's men and piling the pressure on the capital side.

As it happened, Barcelona did enough to squeeze out a 1-0 victory to move joint-top with Real Madrid and send a statement of intent to the rest of the league over their seriousness to defend the title and with the first leg of the El Clasico on the horizon, the victory takes on extra significance for Ernesto Valverde.

Here, we shall be highlighting five talking points from the gripping encounter at the Wanda Metropolitano.

#5 Diego Simeone's poor record against Barcelona continues

Simeone has not tasted victory over Barcelona in LaLiga as a manager
Simeone has not tasted victory over Barcelona in LaLiga as a manager

Ever since arriving Atletico Madrid in 2011, Diego Simeone deserves immense praise for his transformation of the club and his performances in helping the side go from an average Spanish side into one of Europe's heavyweights ranks as one of the best managerial feats in history.

His tactical acumen is not in doubt and he has regularly gotten the better of most managers he has faced during his career, but one team that has given the 49-year-old countless sleepless nights has been Barcelona.

Although he has gotten the better of the Catalans in Europe, knocking them out of the 2014 and 2016 Champions League campaigns, domestically, it has been a different story and Simeone has indeed found Barcelona a very hard nut to crack in LaLiga.

It might be hard to believe, but the Argentine manager is yet to taste victory in LaLiga against the Blaugrana since arriving at the Atletico dugout eight years ago.

In that time, he has come up against Barcelona 15 times in the league, losing 10 and drawing just five.

The latest setback means that Simeone has now gone 16 LaLiga matches without getting a victory against Barcelona and he would have to wait until at least April 2020 to get another chance to reverse this unwanted record.

Also check out: La Liga La Liga fixtures La liga table 2019-20

#4 Joao Felix struggles to shine

Felix was on the peripheries of the game
Felix was on the peripheries of the game

Joao Felix was made the most expensive player in Atletico Madrid's history and the sixth-costliest player of all time when the Spanish side paid Benfica the sum of €126m to price him away from Portugal.

The 20-year-old had shone for The Eagles last season, scoring 20 goals in all competitions to help Benfica to the Primeira Liga last season and with Griezmann departing the club, fans of Atletico Madrid expected that the Portuguese international would help fill the void left behind by Griezmann.

However, it has been a slow start for Felix and despite showing flashes of his brilliance, his output in front of goal has been beneath par and his total return of just three goals from 13 matches this season helps buttress this fact.

He suffered an injury setback recently, but was awarded the Golden Boy award as the best player under the age of 21 but critics felt he was an undeserving winner, with Sancho favored in the eyes of many.

When Barcelona came to town, it offered the perfect opportunity for Felix to silence his detractors and show that he belongs on the big stage, but sadly, the opportunity passed him by.

For the entirety of his time on the field, he was nothing more than a passer-by and it came as no major surprise when Diego Simeone hauled him off for Vitolo and despite his vociferous complaints at being substituted, on closer introspection, Felix would know that he did not do enough.

#3 Marc-Andre ter Stegen shows his class

Teer Stegen pulled off two wonderful saves
Teer Stegen pulled off two wonderful saves

Marc-Andre ter Stegen is regularly billed as one of the best goalkeepers in the world and against Atletico Madrid, he reminded everyone of just why he is so highly rated.

The home side were quick to get out of the blocks and mounted the pressure on Barcelona in a bid to get an early goal and the fact that the visitors went into the break level was down to the heroics of their goalkeeper.

Atletico had the first real chance of the game when center-back Felipe drove forward but he was unlucky to see his effort deflected off Junior Firpo onto the post with ter Stegen well beaten.

That was, however, to be the last time that the German international was to be caught out and few minutes later, he pulled off an exceptional save to keep out Felipe after the defender had connected excellently with a lofted ball by Joao Felix.

The shot was at point-blank range with next to no reaction time for ter Stegen and replays perfectly captured Felipe's facial reactions going from elation at scoring to disbelief at the save that the goalkeeper pulled off.

There was an even better save from an Alvaro Morata header later on and Stegen displayed the full extent of his reflexes to keep out the Spaniard when it seemed certain that the ball would nestle in the back of the net after it had bounced off the ground.

Words cannot accurately describe the beauty of the save, but to get an idea, one has to think of the 'greatest save ever made' by Gordon Banks from a Pele header at the 1970 World Cup.

Ultimately, Barcelona rode out the Atletico Madrid storm and held on for the victory but it is highly unlikely that they would have gotten all three points but for the heroics of their goalkeeper.

#2 Antoine Griezmann flounders on his return 'home'

Griezmann was on the peripheries of the match
Griezmann was on the peripheries of the match

Antoine Griezmann completed a highly controversial transfer when he joined Barcelona from Atletico Madrid for the sum of €120m over the summer.

It has, however, not been the dream start to his Barcelona career that he would have expected and he has struggled horribly for form in the colours of Barcelona, with just five goals from his first 17 matches for the Catalans.

In the eyes of virtually every Atletico Madrid fan, Griezmann committed the worst sin by joining the Catalans, especially coming just a season after he publicly spurned Barcelona and called Atletico his 'home'.

Over the course of five seasons, the French international played his way into the hearts of Atletico Madrid fans as a bonafide legend, but ahead of his return to the capital, there was no love lost between the fans and their former darling, with nothing but animosity existing in the hearts of the Atletico faihful.

They expressed as much in the buildup to the match, putting toy rats on Griezmann's plaque at the stadium (similar to what they did to Courtois on his 'return' last term) and there were numerous signs referencing the 28-year-old in unprintable names, while his every touch was greeted with jeers and boos.

In the buildup to the game, all attention was on Antoine Griezmann and how he would perform on his return 'home' but as it happened, it proved to be a case of 'much ado about nothing', with the former Real Sociedad man being on the periphery of the match throughout.

There was hardly anything of note that Griezmann did throughout the 90 minutes, with the best chance falling to him after Suarez set him up perfectly, but rather disappointingly, the World Cup winner blazed high and over on the volley when he could have done better had he shown more composure.

Although they saw their team lose, there would have been a modicum of satisfaction for the Atletico Madrid fans that their 'Judas' faltered horribly on his return to his former stomping ground.

#1 Lionel Messi the difference maker yet again

Messi was the match winner
Messi was the match winner

Lionel Messi began the current campaign on the sidelines with a calf injury and unsurprisingly, Barcelona struggled in the absence of their talisman.

Since his return, there has been an upturn in the fortunes of the Catalans and against Atletico Madrid, the 32-year-old once again showed why he is rightly regarded as one of the best players in history.

For most of the game, he had threatened but failed to make a real impact on the match as the Atletico defenders and midfielders held their line properly and denied him the space to work his magic.

All that, however, changed in the 86th minute as Lionel Messi picked up the ball some 40 yards away from the Atleti goal before embarking on one of his trademark mazy runs.

When the Rosario native opened up the space for himself and ran directly at the opposition goal, there was an inevitable feeling that a moment of magic was about to happen and that proved to be the case, with Messi skipping past multiple challenges before playing a perfect one-two with Luis Suarez and then unleashing an unstoppable shot past Jan Oblak.

The goal was his 30th from just 39 fixtures against Los Colchoneros to hand Barcelona all three points and while the attention might have unusually been away from him prior to kickoff, Messi made sure he became the topic after the game with another match-winning performance.

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Edited by Kingshuk Kusari