Simeone secures first Atletico win against Barcelona

Barca Atleti

Atletico Madrid players celebrating after their goal against Barcelona

Atletico Madrid players celebrating after their goal against Barcelona

Atletico Madrid have stretched their unbeaten start to the 2020/21 La Liga season to eight games with a 1-0 win at home to title rivals Barcelona.

Yannick Carrasco’s first-half goal was enough to secure all three points for Diego Simeone’s hosts, in his first-ever La Liga win over the Catalans, as the Belgian international benefitted from a huge error from Marc Ter Stegen.

Gerard Pique gifted possession to Koke and the Spaniard sent Carrasco behind the La Blaugrana defence, but Ter Stegen’s attempted clearance failed, and Carrasco latched onto the loose ball to slot into an empty net from 40 yards.

Atletico had the better chances to score in the opening 45 minutes, as Ter Stegen produced a fine stop from Saul Niguez and Marcos Llorente fired against the bar.

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Barcelona did look to gain a foothold in the game after the restart, but Clement Lenglet wasted their best chance as his tame header was comfortably saved by Jan Oblak.

Ronald Koeman’s disappointing night went from bad to worse as his side failed to really create anything in the closing stages to trouble Atletico, and Pique and Sergi Roberto hobbled off injured.

Barça captain Lionel Messi had a match to forget, creating very little danger, while former Atleti forward Antoine Griezmann missed the target in each half as the Catalans fell to a third defeat of the season, leaving them 10th in the table on 11 points.

Atlético moved up to second in the standings, level on 20 points with leaders Real Sociedad.

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