In May 2014, Diego Godin’s goal at the Nou Camp gave Atletico Madrid a 1-1 draw to secure a remarkable Spanish title triumph.
It was the sixth time the two teams had played that season, and Barcelona hadn’t managed to win any of those meetings.
Since then, however, Barca have succeeded in dramatically turning around their fortunes against the capital club, and Atletico boss Diego Simeone heads into Tuesday’s encounter at the Nou Camp in the knowledge that he has never defeated Luis Enrique since he took over at the Catalan giants.
Barca, in fact, have won each of the last six meetings between the teams, and there has been a very simple explanation for their turnaround in fortunes against Atletico: Lionel Messi. Whereas the Argentine couldn’t manage a single goal in the half-dozen clashes with Atletico in 2013/4, since then they have not been able to stop him.
Messi has netted on five occasions in those six straight wins over his compatriot Simeone’s team, most recently the equaliser in January’s league meeting at the Nou Camp, meaning Atletico have undergone the unwitting transformation from being the best team at tying up Messi to one of the teams he most enjoys playing against.
Now, of course, Simeone will attempt to make the pendulum swing back the other way, and he will do so by following the example successfully set by Real Madrid in Saturday’s Clasico.
Despite his pre-match assertions that he wanted to control possession as much as possible, Zinedine Zidane set his team in a very defensive shape, with all eleven players sitting deep in their own half to minimise the space available for Barca’s star forward line.
As a consequence, Messi had to drop deeper and deeper in an attempt to influence the play, and found himself unable to get on the ball in dangerous areas – he only managed one shot on target in the entire game.
Atletico will look to emulate that. Simeone’s men are also renowned for their aggressive, physical approach, but they will have to tread the line more carefully than their last visit to Barcelona, when they had two players sent off including left-back Filipe Luis for a reckless lunge on Messi.
Ultimately, though, as many teams have discovered to their cost there is only so much you can do to shackle Messi: if he performs at his best, he’s simply unstoppable.
