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MOTD: Atletico Madrid 2-3 Barcelona (2-4 agg)

By on January 28, 2015

Atletico Madrid’s shirt sponsor is fitting: Azerbaijan – The Land of Fire.  Vincente Calderon was tonight the stadium of fire.  Nine yellows, two reds, and multiple skirmishes in the club’s Copa Del Rey semi-final against Barcelona. By the eighty-fourth minute the referee’s can of vanishing spray actually ran out he was so busy. Torres: the man on fire, with one goal to add to his two against Real Madrid in the previous round.

The Spaniard might grab the headlines having rediscovered his form and confidence; however, on the night, Atletico were drowned out by a sea of yellow in Barcelona’s eleven.  Actually, you could boil the majority of Barca’s chances down to three players – Suarez, Messi, and Neymar, their attacking trio.  Barca’s third goal was Messi’s creation though Jordi Alba assisted and Neymar scored, Messi starting the move that Suarez then slid to Neymar to score.

Of course, other Barca players played well – notably Ivan Rakitic and Alba – but as a unit Atletico were more impressive.  They didn’t back down and had all the intensity one expects from them.  In fact, it was they who opened the scoring less than a minute in, and one was left with the sense that had Raul Garcia not been sent off at halftime they might have gone on to win it.  Only after they gained the man advantage did Barca dominate; beforehand, Atletico had controlled the tempo and Barca held on (being up 1-0 from the first leg).

Only forty seconds in Diego Simeone’s men were rewarded for their high pressing, having intercepted a long diagonal ball before getting it up to Torres.  One-on-one with Javier Mascherano, Torres turned and sent a clinical low snapshot volley right across goal and off the left-hand post.   It was a finish from Torres that was symbolic of his performance, as well as his rebirth.  Where was this confidence when he was playing for Chelsea?  Eight minutes in he sent Sergio Busquets flying towards France with a magical Cruyff-turn.

Messi, though, would have none of being down and moments later began a counter-attack by playing the ball to Suarez, who then threaded a lovely outside-of-the-boot through ball into the path of Neymar.  The Brazilian took it across Juanfran and tucked a low finish past Jan Oblak back across goal into the bottom left corner.

Yet typical of a thrilling end-to-end first half, Atletico rebounded with another goal.  After Antonio Griezmann got of the end of a cross with a side-volley and forced Andre Ter Stegen to use every billionth of a a second to aid his reflexes, Juanfran went down the right side of the box, through the legs if Javier Mascherano and into the box.  However, Mascherano brought him down, and while it was clearly outside the box (at least from the television angles), a penalty was whistled, which Raul Garcia buried into the bottom left corner with an unstoppable shot.

Yet it was again the Barca trio that came up on top.  Jose Enrique’s men equalized with an own goal – Miranda poking home Busquets’ flick on from a corner – and forty-one minutes in Barca scored the go-ahead goal.  Messi carried the ball from his own half to the edge of Atletico’s box, before cutting back and curling a beautiful ball over the top into Alba’s run down the left.   Alba did brilliantly to pull it back on the slide, and Neymar had the simple job of poking the ball home.

The tempo and early goal frenzy looked like it would carry over to the second half, but whatever Garcia did in the tunnel at halftime got him sent off and as a result the second half was a training session for Barca.  Meanwhile, Atletico continued to hack Messi down – Mario Suarez being sent off for one such infraction – to stop him, Neymar, and Suarez from scoring more.
Man of the Match: Lionel Messi

Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons and Carlos Delgado

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.