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Xavi Hernandez continued his dominant record against Diego Simeone as his Barcelona ended Atletico Madrid’s unbeaten home run in the league that has held for over a year.
Barcelona ran riot against Atletico Madrid, beating their Spanish capital-based rivals 3-0 to move into second place on the LALIGA standings.
Atletico Madrid, who are unbeaten at the Wando Metropolitano since January 2023, hosted Barcelona the last team to beat them at home. The result ended similarly as it did a little over a year ago, with the Blaugrana coming on top.
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How it happened
Atletico Madrid had the more assured start to the game and should have gone ahead through Pablo Barrios, but the youngster finished poorly.
Atletico’s press was intense in the opening 15-20 minutes of the game, and Barcelona had to result in long balls. The visitors soon played their way into the game and started to fashion out chances.
Their improved showing was rewarded around the 28th minute, with Atleti’s loanee Joao Felix, who also scored in the reverse fixture, turning the ball into the net after a delightful cutback from Robert Lewandowski.
Diego Simeone dug into his bench, bringing on Antoine Griezmann and Memphis Depay at half-time for Alvaro Morata and Samuel Lino, but Barcelona had no plans to let them settle, as Lewandowski capitalised on a Rodrigo de Paul blunder to make in two, two minutes after resumption.
It became three in the 65th minute of the encounter through devastating attack which ended with a Lewandowski inch-perfect cross for Fermin Lopez, who headed past Jan Oblak.
Atleti strived to claw themselves back into the game, but were let down by poor final third actions, and the impregnable Marc Andre Ter Stegen.
Barcelona came close to making it four in second-half injury time, when Vitor Roque was played through on goal, but Nahuel Molina impeded him, earning himself a red card to keep the result a more respectable 3-0.
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