{"id":572698,"date":"2026-04-08T23:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/572698\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T23:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:08:08","slug":"barcelona-0-2-atletico-apr-8-2026-game-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/572698\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona 0-2 Atl\u00e9tico (Apr 8, 2026) Game Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-player-guid=\"0d838476-2120-cb34-db2f-a09e1c213769\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/277206\/julian-alvarez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/188230\/alexander-s%C3%B8rloth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alexander S\u00f8rloth<\/a> struck as <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"f18017e3-5d72-38a9-ec4f-af985fb9d265\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=1068\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/a> upset 10-man <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"58f7c4a9-c991-4ed4-fe5c-1f833cba75b8\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=83\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barcelona<\/a> to win the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal 2-0.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona had hemmed Atl\u00e9tico into their box when the hosts received a double blow that left Hansi Flick&#8217;s team down a man and behind a goal just before halftime.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c1lvarez curled home a stunning free kick after the dismissal of <a data-player-guid=\"22e26eeb-527d-357c-ab14-848cfd322479\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/368992\/pau-cubarsi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pau Cubars\u00ed<\/a> and S\u00f8rloth tightened Atl\u00e9tico&#8217;s grip on the tie with a second 20 minutes from time at the Spotify Camp Nou on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Bar\u00e7a, who beat the same opponents in LaLiga on Saturday, were left to rue a series of missed chances both before and after Cubarsi&#8217;s red card for hauling down <a data-player-guid=\"7bddbb8d-dc9a-321f-ac6a-2a23bd173d0f\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/323838\/giuliano-simeone\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Giuliano Simeone<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The referee consulted the pitchside VAR monitor to determine whether Cubarsi should be cautioned or sent off, in the end he decided the latter. The two teams had the opposite happen on Saturday, when a Gerard Martin red was flipped back to yellow in Barcelona&#8217;s 2-1 away win.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez celebrates after scoring a goal for Atleti against Barcelona in the Champions League.\" class=\"\" data-mptype=\"image\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\"\/>Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez celebrates after scoring a goal for Atleti against Barcelona in the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>Bar\u00e7a started the second half strongly as they chased an equaliser and <a data-player-guid=\"73bfa01e-2ac7-2124-a245-7af746308a53\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/230945\/marcus-rashford\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marcus Rashford<\/a> was again unfortunate as he drove into the side-netting from a tight angle and had a free kick tipped over by <a data-player-guid=\"9b9413f6-5c10-209b-9dde-79bffa3669d2\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/177927\/juan-musso\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juan Musso<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Rashford\u00a0went close on several occasions, but was unable to find a way past Atl\u00e9tico goalkeeper <a data-player-guid=\"9b9413f6-5c10-209b-9dde-79bffa3669d2\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/177927\/juan-musso\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juan Musso<\/a>.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/362150\/Lamine-Yamal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lamine Yamal<\/a>\u00a0was also lively, but even his late mazy run through the Atleti box was for naught as an undermanned Barcelona could not get back into the game.<\/p>\n<p>Barca started the second half strongly as they chased an equaliser and Rashford was again unfortunate as he drove into the side-netting from a tight angle and had a free-kick tipped over by Musso.<\/p>\n<p>It was Bar\u00e7a&#8217;s first defeat in 26 home meetings with Atl\u00e9tico stretching back to 2006, while Diego Simoene&#8217;s side recorded an away victory over Spanish opposition in the Champions League for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>The second leg is in Madrid on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Information from PA and The Associated Press was used in this recap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez and Alexander S\u00f8rloth struck as Atl\u00e9tico Madrid upset 10-man Barcelona to win the first leg of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-572698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}