On Sunday evening, the 15th round of the Spanish "La Liga" championship ended at the "Wanda Metropolitano" stadium.
In the final round, two giants of the country clashed - Madrid's "Atletico" and "Barcelona". Lionel Messi's goal at the end of the match determined a very important victory for the Catalonia team.
The painful defeat suffered by "Atletico" not only complicated their position in the title race but also dropped them three positions down.
Diego Simeone's team had a positive start - the hosts played open football and posed serious problems for "Barcelona"'s defense. The visitors were only saved by Marco-Andre ter Stegen, who saved the ball from the goal line twice.
In the first half, "Barcelona" also had a chance to score when Gerard Pique directed the ball towards the goal post from a set-piece.
In the second half, the situation was different - "Barcelona" controlled the ball more frequently, while "Atletico" reduced the number of attacks.
The decisive moment of the match occurred in the 86th minute when Lionel Messi sprinted half of the field and scored the winning goal in Jan Oblak's goal in his trademark style. The Argentine, playing with Luis Suarez as a "wall", didn't give "Atletico" goalkeeper a chance with a crafty shot.
On the other hand, "Barcelona" maintained their leadership position after the victory. Both they and "Real" have 31 points. "Atletico" increased their gap to 6 points after this setback.
Score:
"Atletico" 0 - 1 "Barcelona"
86' [0 - 1] L. Messi
League table:
Starting line-ups:
"Atletico": (4-4-2) Oblak; Trippier, Felipe, Hermoso, Saul; Koke, Thomas, Herrera, Correa; Joao Felix, Morata.
"Barcelona": (4-3-3) Ter Stegen; Roberto, Pique, Lenglet, Junior; Rakitic, De Jong, Arthur; Messi, Suarez, Griezmann.
