Atlético de Madrid Vs Barcelona: Summary
Once again, Barcelona is defeated, it seems that Koeman's team cannot lift its head and now with this result the Dutch coach is completely on the tightrope, which is why it is believed that his time at the club is over.
Barcelona's visit to Wanda has ended in a 2-0 defeat, which has sent the Catalans to sleep in ninth place for today, so it will depend on the other games to see if it goes down to tenth position.
However, Laporta's team still has a postponed match against Sevilla.
Barça is a team that shows a bit of football, but that easily breaks down, so right now it is not a competitive team or capable of fighting the league or any other competition.
It was this that Atlético de Madrid has taken advantage of to win the game, where a couple of forceful plays ended with a Barcelona that can barely get up.
With goals from Luis Suárez and Lemar, the rojiblancos managed to win the game, Barcelona was the dominator in a large section of the match, but they never managed to create forceful chances, so that Atlético de Madrid could be seen quite comfortable during much of the match.
Many will say that Barcelona did not deserve to go to rest losing two to zero, but bad decisions and defensive oversights pay dearly, and it is that today it was a very weak defensive team.
You could see a very active Joao Felix and a crushing Lemar in his attacks, which made it easier for Atlético to take the three points in their stadium.
Barcelona drops to ninth place
The Catalans currently have 12 points, the same as Valencia, who occupies eighth place for total average goals.
In the same way, they continue to five points behind Real Madrid, who are the current leaders of the League with 17 points, but they still have one game less, which they will play this Sunday against Espanyol in Cornella, so they could be placed at eight points of the Barça.
The ninth position they occupy today is still not certain, if Betis who adds 12 points beats Villarreal or draws, then the Catalans would be falling to tenth position, thus occupying the positions of the middle of the table.
The first minutes made Barcelona dream
The Dutch coach returned to bet on the youngsters, placing Gavi and Nico in the starting eleven, a position where he should never have removed them after the great game they played against Levante.
However, Gavi was booked with a card, moving to the left in the 4-2-3-1 system, while Frankie de Jong moved to the right.
Barcelona showed a good start, pressing on the Atlético field and with a lot of mobility to find the passing lanes, a very active Coutinho could be seen in the creation as a midfielder, where they created a good collective game and managed to get closer, but without giving a lot of danger, one of the most dangerous actions was the combination of Coutinho and De Jong throughout the match and Dest's band innings.
However, Atlético had taken their best chips and despite not having control of the game and being dominated by Barça, they managed to respond and give Koeman's men a bath of cold water.
The most dangerous of those at home was Joao Félix, who showed a lot of mobility on the field. After a play started by Oblak's domains and that reached the feet of the Portuguese Félix, and he leaned on Luis Suárez, who was on the right side of the field, he deepened for the entrance of Lemar, and he will surpass the German goalkeeper to place the goal one to zero on the scoreboard.
Lemar managed to eliminate Sergio Busquets and Piqué, to later overtake Ter Stegen, so the rojiblancos broke their streak of not scoring in the first half. Currently, they had seven games without scoring a goal in the first 45 minutes, so Barcelona allowed them to end this spell.
Without doing much or showing their best football, the rojiblancos' game had taken control of Koeman's defenders, so little by little Barça was losing their idea of the game, which they wanted to keep even losing one to zero, a shot from Coutinho that passed very close to Oblak's goal and a center from the Portuguese who lowered his head to Memphis for the arrival of De Jong were one of the most important approaches of the team.
They were some important plays that could allow them to tie.
However, Luis Suárez began to appear and tried with a shot that went very close, but minutes later the Uruguayan would sentence the game by placing two to zero, after a play where Memphis loses the ball in defense with Lemar, and he leans on Joao Félix who started the attack so that later Suárez arrived very close to the offside and beat his former teammate Ter Stegen.
On the other hand, Oblak was a spectator for much of the game, Barça had the ball dominated, but did not create dangerous scoring chances, except for a shot from Coutinho that Oblak blocked very well.
Looking for a miracle
As a last letter and in search of a miracle Koeman enters Ansu Fati, the one in charge of replacing Lionel Messi, the young man played around 30 minutes of matches, he ranked as nine and from the beginning he tried to move the ball a lot looking for Memphis, where with his entry the game system turned 4-3-3, Gavi playing as a false winger.
Desperate Koeman and knowing that everything was getting even more complicated, played his other chips by entering Luuk de Jong and Riqui Puig, while Cholo Simeone gave Luis Suárez and Félix rest. The Argentine coach preferred to take care of the marking and not risk anything.
Before the end of the game, exactly twelve minutes from the end, Memphis got a foul that he himself charged, a play rehearsed with Piqué that ended in nothing. So the Catalans did not go through fouls and that shot by Coutinho, so they could not create clear scoring chances that would allow them a draw.
Ovation for Joao Félix and Luis Suárez, while Griezmann was booed.
The Portuguese and the Uruguayan made a very good commitment, for which the two were applauded at the time of their departures. Joao Félix showed an impressive game where he was very fast with the ball, where he left a great game with many flashes in the collective and individual game, he only needed his goal to make a perfect game.
That is how the Metropolitan dismissed him with much applause, acknowledging his efforts. You have to remember that the Portuguese is a very talented player, but that he comes from going through difficult moments after suffering the injury that took him away from the courts, so there were many doubts about him because he was practically all last season without seeing minutes.
Luis Suárez was another of those who left applauded and cheered, who was able to play a very good game, so much so that those from the north end sang the song “Criminal of the area”, a song that was invented during the pandemic especially for the Uruguayan.
Now the fans continue without forgiving the Frenchman who had left the team to go to Barcelona and has now returned home again, so Griezmann was received whistle at the entrance to the field, as well as at the time of hearing his name in the lineups. Despite this, in the minutes he was on the court the public supported him like any other player.
