Julián Álvarez spent the summer saying he wanted to play for Barcelona. On Sunday night at the Metropolitano, he had two clean runs at Joan García and the chance to send Atlético Madrid into the international break on top of La Liga. He scored neither. Fermín López had far less of the ball in far less space, took both of his chances, and Barcelona came from behind to win 2-1 and move five points clear of Diego Simeone's side.
The result restored Barcelona's three-point lead over Real Madrid, who had drawn level on Saturday with a 3-0 win at Valencia. Barcelona now have 33 points from 12 games, Madrid 30 and Atlético 28. It also closed a rough fortnight for Hansi Flick's team, which had lost to Paris Saint-Germain and to Real Madrid before arriving in the capital.
The first half belonged to Atlético, and to Álvarez's misses
For 45 minutes, Barcelona looked like a team that had not recovered from those two defeats. Atlético hit them with speed down both flanks, and the space behind Flick's high line kept opening up.
The first chance came inside the opening minutes. Koke turned a Barcelona giveaway into a through ball, and Álvarez raced in alone. Instead of shooting, he tried to take the ball around García, and the goalkeeper got just enough of a hand to it to push him wide. By the time the Argentine had turned back toward goal, Barcelona had recovered. Marc Pubill then headed a corner against the crossbar, and Pedri hit the bar at the other end.
Álvarez did help create the opener in the 10th minute. Atlético switched play to the right, where Marcos Llorente and Lee Kang-in worked the ball across to him, and he squared it for Giuliano Simeone to finish from close range. Play was paused shortly afterward for a minute's applause in memory of Tenerife striker Jesús de Miguel, who died last week.
Atlético kept coming. Álvarez had another shot squirm under García before the goalkeeper gathered it, and he set up David Hancko for a chance that slipped just wide. Barcelona's best moment came around the half-hour mark, when Yamal hit the side netting from a tight angle. The equalizer arrived in first-half stoppage time, when Pedri drove through the middle and the ball fell to Fermín after a deflection off Pubill. His first-time left-footed finish curled inside the post for 1-1.
Flick's halftime fix: De Jong at right back
The game changed at the break, and it changed because of a lineup decision. Flick took off Brian Fariñas and sent on Frenkie de Jong, playing him at right back, with João Cancelo staying on the left. From the restart, Barcelona pressed higher and kept the ball for longer spells.
"In the first half we were far from the opponent and couldn't press well," Flick said afterward, in comments reported in Spanish by Mundo Deportivo. "But 90 minutes are played. The first half wasn't perfect, but the second one was."
Flick also admitted his team "weren't on the pitch in some situations" before halftime and that there was "no intensity." He called the win a "10 out of 10."
Even so, the best early chance of the second half fell to Atlético. In the 55th minute, Álvarez was played clean through for a second time and tried to lob García early. The shot flew well over the bar, and parts of the Metropolitano whistled him as Alexander Sørloth waited to come on. Simeone made the change four minutes later.
Yamal found Fermín, and Fermín finished
The winner came in the 66th minute. Lamine Yamal slipped a perfectly weighted through ball into the box, Fermín timed his run between defenders and swept a first-time right-footed shot past Jan Oblak. It was his eighth goal of the season.
Yamal finished the match with seven chances created, the most of any player on the field, according to AS. Barcelona ended with 63 percent of the ball and 19 shots to Atlético's nine, though the expected-goals totals were almost even at 1.60 to 1.53. That gap between similar chance quality and different results is the story of the night: Atlético's best openings fell to their best finisher, and he didnt convert them.
Simeone added Jonathan David to Sørloth and Álvarez late on, but Atlético had spent most of their energy in that first half. Flick, meanwhile, used the final half hour to bring back two players returning from injury, Andreas Christensen and Eric García.
"We have the quality to win these games," Flick said. "I told you that you have to believe in this team. It's not easy to win here."
For Atlético, the frustration goes beyond one result. This was the game that could have put them first, against the club Álvarez openly wanted to join, and he was involved in almost every dangerous move they made. Barcelona will spend the break five points ahead of them anyway, with a halftime adjustment and Fermín's finishing doing what Atlético's first-half pressure could not.
