Barça already caresses the League title with a saving goal from Lewandowski

BarcelonaBarça can now start putting the bottles in the fridge to have them nice and cold for when it's time to celebrate. The first episode of the trilogy of duels against Atlético de Madrid served to hit the waterline of two Madrid teams at once. Lewandowski's saving goal sinks Real Madrid in the standings and, incidentally, harms an Atlético that has already understood that Barça wants to win everything just before the Champions League duel. The Whites look up and find it hard to see an indomitable Barça that knew how to react before halftime, when it seemed they could also lose. The competitive gene of this team is beyond debate. A team that faces challenges and overcomes them. It seems there is nothing to scare a team destined to win the League after winning a match that, at times, seemed like it would end in a draw in a second half where there was no energy left in the players' legs.

It was a very complicated match, this one, as the temptation to think more about the Champions League was very present. And Flick did not want to risk with some players, but once the ball started rolling, the European competition ceased to exist. The two teams emptied themselves in an end-to-end duel in which Barça did not always have control, but managed to attack an Atlético that ended up very touched when Nico González saw the red card before halftime. Until then, Lamine Yamal, Griezmann, Fermín, and Giuliano Simeone were martyring two overly soft defenses. Both teams could have scored more goals, but Joan Garcia and Musso prevented two or three.

Diego Pablo Simeone and Hansi Flick end up exhausted every time they face each other. They seem like two great chess masters looking for a way to surprise their rival during a major final in which they face each other many times in a few days. In just two months, Atlético and Barça will have faced each other on five occasions. Five episodes of a sporting rivalry that pits two ways of understanding the game head-to-head. One that always wants the ball and the other that can give it up. One that seeks to be the protagonist and the other that seeks how to annoy the rival. And what a rival, it is Atlético. Always tough, always competitive, despite having a lot of absences and that, technically, it was a match where not much was at stake, beyond fighting Villarreal for third place. The match was at times as unpleasant as chewing sand, with skirmishes, injuries, and tension.

Barça really had a lot at stake. And more after seeing how Madrid crumbled and lost in Mallorca. Winning at the Metropolitano would have sealed the League. On a matchday when, on paper, the team with the most chances of dropping points was Barça, it was Madrid who stumbled. Flick had to make decisions and left Koundé and Balde on the bench, already recovered from injuries but without rhythm; he positioned Rashford on the wing and decided he would play without a reference striker. It was Dani Olmo who acted as a false nine, with Fermín seeking interior spaces and Lamine playing at a high level on the wing. The doubt was how Rashford would perform, the man who has to make people forget Raphinha at all costs, an almost utopian task. The Englishman, however, took the step forward that was expected of him, equalizing the match shortly after Giuliano Simeone's goal. He received the ball very far out, took it to the opponent's area and, playing a one-two with Olmo, beat Musso. A goal that was needed, as the Mattress Makers had scored shortly before in an action where Cancelo had made a mistake, leaving the Mattress Makers' coach's son alone behind him.

Barça, currently, is like this. A roller coaster where you have to accept that goals will be conceded despite having Joan García between the posts. The defense is struggling, waiting for all the starters to return. So you have to score more goals than the opponent, one of those football clichés that never fail: if you score three goals, it's not serious if you concede two. And if you draw at Atlético's ground, it wouldn't be a disaster either if Madrid had lost before. But given how the match was going, the players wanted more. They weren't satisfied with one point after a first half in which Griezmann almost scored two goals. The Frenchman lacked accuracy, as did a Barça that shot more and, at halftime, brought Ferran Torres onto the pitch to decide the match, seal the League, and create a perfect domino effect: hurt Real Madrid and leave Atlético weakened before the Champions League clash.

Cancelo's two faces

Barça was lucky with VAR, as Gerard Martín had been sent off for a clear foul after touching the ball. It was a yellow, even though Simeone was wringing his hair in anger. With one man down, everything would have been complicated, but with superiority it was a matter of hitting an increasingly defensive Atlético again and again, who were begging to save the point and boost their morale for the Champions League with an exercise in resistance.

Barça needed to give rhythm to the ball, despite suffering setbacks like the minor injuries to Araújo and his substitute, Bernal. Minor injuries, but they conditioned a match where Lamine tried again and again, with prodigious actions like a great assist to Fermín in the first half. But the ball wasn't going in and the genius from Rocafonda was getting angry with the opponent, bad luck, and the world in general. He always wants to win.

At times, it seemed like Atlético would get away with it, but Cancelo, a man who fails in defense but contributes in attack, made the play that allowed Lewandowski to score a goal worth half the League. The Pole, who had only been on the field for five minutes, did what he knows how to do: resolve a play inside the box and leave the "colchoneros" and "madridistas" well shaken. With one goal, two rivals ended up very shaken. Masterful play by Flick's Barça.