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Barcelona 1 Atletico 2: Pedri’s wasted wonder goal, youthful mistakes, what now in the title race?

Posted on by Taylor Reeves
Barcelona 1 Atletico 2: Pedri’s wasted wonder goal, youthful mistakes, what now in the title race?

Diego Simeone’s first win in Barcelona as Atletico Madrid manager was bound to be dramatic.

An injury-time goal from Alexander Sorloth sealed a 2-1 victory on a night when Barca had plenty of reasons to be frustrated.

A great goal from Pedri opened the scoring for the Catalans, who were the better team for most of the game but failed to secure the lead on several occasions.

Robert Lewandowski will try to forget last night after a blatant missed chance in the second half. Fermin Lopez, Raphinha and Pedri also missed great opportunities. Rodrigo De Paul then equalized in the second half and the visitors took advantage of Barcelona’s sloppiness in extra time to seal victory with a perfect counterattack.

Here we analyze the game’s key talking points…

Where is the title race?

This is a very hard pill for Barca to swallow.

Atletico are three points ahead of them in La Liga and will start 2025 as league leaders with a game to spare. Real Madrid can also face them if they beat Sevilla today and also have an extra game in hand.

Two months ago, Barca beat Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu and were six points clear at the top of the table. Now they have won just once in seven La Liga games, with some uninspiring performances that have head coach Hansi Flick worried.

Last night wasn’t one of the inferior performances, but it was one of their best games of the season and shows that Barca are a team with a soul, well connected to their coach’s ideals and have enough talent to believe that they it can achieve great things. Barca fans can still believe that the title race is far from over.

“I know we played fantastically in the first three months, but in the end we lost too many points,” said Flick. “But I still think we are in a good position. I’m not too worried about not being at the top of the table.”

However, the Madrid teams have an advantage. Atlético had one of their best survival performances in recent years – and that was thanks in part to their strength.

Two substitutes – Nahuel Molina and Alexander Sorloth – scored the winner, and contributions from Koke, Robin Le Normand and Axel Witsel were crucial in resisting Barca’s attempts.

Simeone has reason to believe this could be one of those years for them. Now it’s time to prove it.

Pol Ballus

Pedri’s wasted master class

It’s hard to explain how Barcelona lost the game with such a dominant performance from Pedri.

The 22-year-old was by far the star in Montjuic. He scored an outstanding goal, weaving through three Atletico players before finding Gavi to combine. A return allowed Pedri to beat Jan Oblak in the far corner.

His performance was convincing proof of his limitless creativity. Atlético couldn’t get close to the youth team graduate, who created three great chances, but Fermin Lopez and Raphinha failed to capitalize on them twice. He had 95 touches of the ball, a passing accuracy of 89 percent, completed four key passes and had three shots – more than anyone else in the game.

Pedri is back at the peak of his powers. Five months ago some fans would have considered selling the Spain international after he struggled with injuries for three seasons – but he has been rejuvenated since Flick’s arrival.

Deco also deserves a lot of the credit. The sporting director led the restructuring of the backroom staff with an entirely new team of fitness and fitness trainers led by former Chelsea physiotherapist Julio Tous.

“He is very professional,” said Flick in his press conference about the man of the match. “He trains well, takes care of his body and always does additional treatments with the physiotherapists. It’s nice to see him at this level now. Watching him play was amazing and the goal was incredible.”

“When you see him on the pitch, he makes his teammates better now. I think this is the next step in his career.”

Pol Ballus

Atletico’s equalizer: Barcelona go from the sublime to the ridiculous

Despite Conor Gallagher taking a more central role in the second half, Atletico still struggled to find ways to harm the hosts – until Two minutes of madness brought them level.

In the 58th minute, Pedri played a wonderful pass over the Atletico defense, sending Raphinha heading towards the goal. Oblak came off his line, which resulted in the Barcelona captain lifting the ball. The game, which had seen few interruptions up to that point, came to a standstill as the stadium collectively took a deep breath, but the ball bounced off the crossbar before Robert Lewandowski followed up and Axel Witsel volleyed into Axel Witsel’s side head rammed.

Witsel then received treatment before the start of the game, with Oblak kicking the ball forward. Atletico retained possession and played it back, finding Javi Galan on the left. His pass was blocked by Jules Kounde and went back to Raphinha, but Clement Lenglet collected it and passed forward under pressure.

The ball went to Gavi, who headed the ball into the grass rather than chesting it down – an avoidable mistake. Antoine Griezmann intercepted the ball and passed it to Rodrigo De Paul.

De Paul then released Julian Alvarez on the left, Kounde was too far forward and Pau Cubarsi struggled to keep up. Alvarez got close to the penalty area before pushing the ball back, where Barcelona made a second avoidable mistake. Marc Casado decided to backheel the ball as the ball was behind him – if he hadn’t done so, the ball seemed certain to reach Gavi. Instead, the underhit delivery went straight to De Paul, who rolled it in to equalize for Atlético.

Less than 120 seconds after Barcelona almost made it 2-0, the score was back at 1-1 with 30 minutes left.

They might have been able to get away with it, but a problem that has been plaguing them lately and before in this game has once again surfaced…

By Ananth

Barcelona rue missed opportunities…

Barcelona is La Liga’s top scorer with 51 goals from 19 games, 14 more than Real Madrid and 18 more than Atlético. Even in a poor league season, they only managed to score twice.

The biggest concern, however, is that they will not be able to take advantage of their opportunities. In their last seven league games, Barcelona have an expected number of goals (xG, the number of goals a team is expected to score based on the quality of chances created) of 17.0, but have only scored 11 goals, compared to 40 goals at 30.8 xG in their first 12 league games.

Part of this can be attributed to the team returning to a more sustainable scoring rate, but the missed chances against Atletico (and Leganes last weekend) suggest there is a deeper problem.

The first clear chance came in the 25th minute when Gavi sent an open header past the goal after a cross from Raphinha.

Pedri then scored the first goal before Fermin Lopez missed a chance to make it 2-0 early in the second half and missed his shot when Oblak parried.

The next presentable chance was Raphinha’s lob discussed above, but Lewandowski’s best chance came in the 76th minute. A clipped pass from Raphinha found substitute Ferran Torres, who played the ball back to an open Lewandowski – a move the 36-year-old has made time and again this season and throughout his goalscoring career.

Somehow Lewandowski, who has scored just twice in seven league games, managed to almost completely miss the ball as Oblak rallied.

Oblak had two more crucial contributions when he first saved from Raphinha in the 87th minute after another fantastic Pedri pass…

… before the Spaniard parried again a minute later after an assist from Dani Olmo.

Hansi Flick’s Barcelona are a young team whose risk-taking approach requires an incredible level of precision. They will always be prone to moments of quality – a well-timed run, a fantastic save – but some of their mistakes in recent weeks have compounded the impact of moments beyond their control.

The winter break couldn’t have come at a better time – this team desperately needs rest and a fresh start.

Anantaajith Raghuraman

Is Barcelona too young?

Flick wanted to set an example for his team in the run-up to the game.

“We lost five experienced players last season,” he said. “Dani Olmo and Pau Victor have arrived and the rest of the team is, to be honest, very young. They are doing really well and have improved a lot. In the end we are not happy with our current form, but we have to fight. I can say that.”

This was also a supportive point from the German coach after some of the disappointing performances in recent weeks, such as the draws against Celta de Vigo and Real Betis.

Last night, Barcelona’s starting lineup had an average age of 24.5 years, and Lamine Yamal wasn’t even there. Atletico’s was 27.5. Both goals conceded by the Catalans contained many mistakes that were probably juvenile (see above).

This is part of the learning process for people like Casado, Cubarsi or even Inaki Pena, who have never been exposed to such a constant high-pressure environment before.

After the game, Flick decided to protect his players, praise their great performance and emphasize how happy he is to lead this young team.

“The mood in the dressing room wasn’t great, but I told the players I was so proud of our performance,” he said. “It was fantastic, but we have to get smarter and learn from it.”

“At the end of the day I can tell you that I am very happy to manage these players. They are young, but they are a unit that works really hard and wants to achieve something big. Every day when I drive to training at 6:30 in the morning, I am so happy to be responsible for her. A pleasure.”

Pol Ballus

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