Atletico Madrid took a huge step towards reaching the Champions League semi-finals as they claimed an impressive win at 10-man Barcelona.
The visitors had not won at the Nou Camp since 2006 before Wednesday but goals in either half by Julian Alvarez and Alexander Sorloth secured the win in the first-leg of their quarter-final tie.
Barcelona had been the better side for much of the game but a foul on Giuliano Simeone by Pau Cubarsi just before half-time proved pivotal.
The defender was initially shown a yellow card by referee Istvan Kovacs after sending Simeone flying as he broke through one-on-one, but that was changed to a red card when Kovacs was asked by the video assistant referee to review the incident on the pitchside monitor.
Alvarez then compounded Barcelona’s misery by superbly sending the free-kick beyond the goalkeeper’s reach and into the back of the net.
To Barcelona’s credit, they responded well to going a man down and dominated the second half, with Marcus Rashford going closest to equalising when he hit the crossbar from a free-kick.
But instead, they were dealt a further blow when Atletico grabbed a second, Alexander Sorloth sweeping home from Matteo Ruggeri’s low cross.
The defeat leaves Barcelona with it all to do when they travel to Madrid in the second leg next Tuesday.
Barcelona pay the price for profligacy
Barcelona will have gone into this game fully confident of getting a win, given their recent results.
They had won eight and drawn one of their previous nine games in all competitions, with their last outing before Wednesday seeing them win 2-1 at Atletico Madrid in La Liga.
They certainly had chances to continue the momentum in this game as they had 24 attempts on goal, with the lively Rashford seeing a couple of efforts saved as well as having a strike chalked off after Lamine Yamal was ruled offside.
Yamal was uncharacteristically quiet, but ultimately it was those couple of minutes just before the break when Cubarsi was sent off and Alvarez scored that proved decisive.
That allowed Atletico to sit off Barcelona and avoid taking any risks as they finished the game with just three shots on target, but in contrast to Barcelona they were clinical with those, scoring from two of them.
Atletico have eliminated Barcelona in both of their previous Champions League knockout ties and while Hansi Flick’s side will draw confidence from their recent win in Madrid, they will need to be at their very best to turn this tie around.
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