{"id":586419,"date":"2026-04-05T05:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T05:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586419\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T05:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T05:06:22","slug":"atletico-1-2-barcelona-5-apr-2026-game-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586419\/","title":{"rendered":"Atl\u00e9tico 1-2 Barcelona (5 Apr, 2026) Game Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barcelona<\/a> took a big step closer to retaining their LaLiga title after claiming a 2-1 win at 10-man Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/a> to take full advantage of Real Madrid<\/a>‘s slipup earlier on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Robert Lewandowski<\/a> scored an 87th-minute winner for Hansi Flick’s side to secure the win after Marcus Rashford<\/a> had canceled out Giuliano Simeone<\/a>‘s opener for the home side at the end of the first half.<\/p>\n

Atl\u00e9tico played the entire second half down a man after Nicol\u00e1s Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a> was red carded deep into first-half stoppage time.<\/p>\n

Barcelona defender Gerard Martin then had a red card early in the second half controversially overturned, and the visitors eventually took advantage.<\/p>\n

It was revenge for Barcelona after a 4-0 loss at the same stadium in the Copa del Rey, while the sides will also clash in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.<\/p>\n

Barcelona’s sixth straight league win takes them seven points clear of Real Madrid with eight games remaining after their great rivals suffered a surprise 2-1 loss at Mallorca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"MarcusMarcus Rashford celebrates after scoring in Barcelona’s win over Atl\u00e9tico Madrid.<\/p>\n

Pierre-Philippe MARCOU \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Atletico have lost three in a row in all tournaments and stayed one point behind third-placed Villarreal, who visit Girona on Monday.<\/p>\n

Diego Simeone’s side had made the breakthrough in the 39th minute, with Clement Lenglet’s lofted pass taken down expertly by Simeone, who then fired past Joan Garc\u00eda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It took Barcelona just three minutes to pull level as Rashford showed his class on the left, playing a one-two with Olmo before sending a shot through Musso’s legs.<\/p>\n

The game then swung in the visiting side’s favour in stoppage time when Gonz\u00e1lez was sent off for scything down Lamine Yamal on the edge of the area.<\/p>\n

The referee originally gave a second yellow card but changed that to a straight red after reviewing the incident.<\/p>\n

Parity in numbers appeared to have been restored in the opening minute of the second half after Martin saw red for planting his studs on Thiago Almada’s ankle.<\/p>\n

But VAR again came into play and the referee changed his decision to a yellow card, drawing a furious reaction from Atletico players and staff.<\/p>\n

Yamal was at the center of everything as Barcelona searched for the goal that would put them in front, while Ferran Torres<\/a> was twice denied by Musso.<\/p>\n

But the keeper was eventually beaten in the 88th minute when he could only push out Joao Cancelo’s strike onto Lewandowski, who bundled it in.<\/p>\n

PA contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona took a big step closer to retaining their LaLiga title after claiming a 2-1 win at 10-man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-586419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}