The inconsistency of Barcelona in the league continues and the Blaugrana they are now nine points behind Atlético de Madrid thanks to a 1-0 defeat at the Metropolitan Wanda. Barça played very poorly throughout the game and finished it with 10 men despite Ronald Koeman having to make a fifth substitution, and Atleti scored a strange goal thanks to a serious mistake by one of the best goalkeepers in the world. This was horrible. Really scary.
FIRST HALF
The start of the game was a wild 15 minutes, round trip, in which both teams ran very hard against each other and created good opportunities. Saúl Ñíguez forced a great save from Marc-André ter Stegen, Antoine Griezmann shot over the crossbar and Marcos Llorente hit the wood to start what looked like a highly entertaining match.
But as time passed, the game settled in that Barça had more ball, while Atleti played a back five and defended deep in the area, and the Blaugrana struggled to find spaces, save for a brilliant pass from Jordi Alba to find Lionel Messi only inside the area, only for the captain to squander a very good opportunity with a weak shot to the right of Jan Oblak.
There were many fouls and cautions in the final minutes and we seemed destined for a goalless first half. Until Ter Stegen made a serious mistake trying to play as goalkeeper and Yannick Carrasco scored an unusual tap-in from 40 yards to give his team the advantage.
At halftime, a physical match without many chances had the hosts up front thanks to an individual error, and things still looked open heading into the last period.
SECOND HALF
Barça took a long time to start the second half and Atleti seemed quite comfortable Blaugrana could not create at all. Clément Lenglet was stopped by two headers from Jan Oblak, Miralem Pjanic and Ousmane Dembélé made some weak shots from afar, and when we got to the last 20 minutes it seemed that Barça were not going to come back. To add insult to injury, Gerard Piqué had to leave with what looked like a bad knee injury.
As time passed and despair grew, Barça showed itself increasingly inept at breaking the Atleti defense, and the changes did not fix it either. The final whistle came to end a horrible performance by Barcelona, and the sooner we get out of it, the better.
Athletic: Oblak; Trippier, Savic, Giménez, Hermoso, Carrasco (Felipe 90 ‘+ 1); Llorente (Diego Costa 73 ‘), Koke, Saúl; Correa (Kondogbia 83 ‘), João Félix (Lemar 83’)
Goals: Carrasco (45 ‘+ 3)
Barcelona: Ter Stegen; Roberto, Piqué (Dest 63 ‘), Lenglet, Alba; Dembélé, Pjanic (Braithwaite 83 ‘), De Jong, Pedri (Coutinho 57’); Messi, Griezmann (Trincão 83 ‘)
Goals: None
