Round Five of this season’s fascinating duel between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid – which has already featured two games in the Spanish Super Cup, one in La Liga and last week’s Champions League first leg – could well prove to be a defining moment for both teams.
All season, the sceptics have been waiting for Atletico’s magnificent run to come to an end. Despite everything they have achieved and the challenges they have overcome, there is still a widespread suspicion that Diego Simeone’s commendable team don’t quite deserve a place amongst the game’s elite.
Although fewer and fewer people are prepared to say it, the underlying belief is that hard work will only take you so far and, when it really comes down to the crunch, Atletico will be exposed as lacking the quality to compete at the very highest level.
That theory can only be fully disproved by silverware, of course, but Atletico’s public perception can take a big step forward tonight if they can succeed where everybody else has failed in the last six years by knocking Barcelona out of the Champions League before the semi-finals.
If Atletico are knocked out on their home turf tonight, however, the critics will be crawling out of the woodwork to say “I told you so” and Los Rojiblancos' credibility as a major force will be under more pressure than ever.
A setback could very easily, of course, negatively translate to Atletico’s league form, destroying the momentum that has kept them challenging for domestic honours and derailing their La Liga title bid in the final weeks of the season.
For the last few months, Diego Simeone’s team have been enjoying a magnificent journey towards European football’s top table; tonight’s game could prove to be a fork in the road.
For Barcelona, it’s an even more important fixture with potential ramifications long beyond their quest to regain the European crown they last won in 2011, when tiki-taka indisputably reigned supreme.
Ever since they were dumped unceremoniously out of last season’s Champions League with a 7-0 aggregate thrashing by Bayern Munich, the Spanish club have been repeatedly forced to defend themselves against allegations that their era of success is over.
Opposing teams have worked them out, complain the critics. Barca lack a Plan B, moan the dissenters. After a fractured season punctuated by behind-the-scenes turmoil, those accusations will resurface with unprecedented vigour if they fail tonight.
This season’s previous four meetings between these teams show just how closely they are matched: they all ended as draws, with a combined total of just four goals.
There won’t be much in it tonight, but the consequences for both clubs could be enormous.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of over-dramatising and reaching greater conclusions than the situation merits, but on this occasion it’s no exaggeration to state tonight’s encounter at the Vicente Calderon is about more than one game of football: it could shape the future paths of these two clubs for a long time to come.
