Joao Felix undid his parent club as a first-half finish from the Portugal international earned Barcelona a 1-0 victory over Atletico Madrid at the Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium.
A fabulous, dominant display in the first half was capped by Joao Felix putting away the only goal of the game, but Culers will have felt short-changed after far too many other chances went begging. As feared, Atletico got their act together in the second half, and the three points never looked safe until the final whistle blew to spark celebrations on Montjuic.
Barca were clearly in no mood for messing around. Straight from the word, they barraged the Atletico goal with chance after chance and very good chances too, and they could easily have been three goals up inside the first quarter of an hour.
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Atletico couldn’t get anything going at all. There could be no arguing that Barca thoroughly deserved the goal when it finally came. And of all people it was Joao Felix, and an extraordinarily motivated Joao Felix against the club from which he’s here on loan, scoring for his second game in a row. Raphinha, who himself would hit the post later in the game, supplied the ball and the Portuguese striker beat Nahuel Molina with ease before popping a neat finish past Jan Oblak.
Even after scoring, Barcelona continued to dominate. So refreshing to see the team playing with the kind of intensity that they’ve been accused of lacking of late. But also frustrating that by half-time they had just one goal to show for one of the best halves of football they have played all season.
The victory put Barcelona back to within four points of the leaders, one of whom, Girona, they will be facing next weekend. Meanwhile, Sevilla were held 1-1 at home by Villarreal, Hector Bellerin was shown a red card in the 27th minute of Real Betis’ goalless draw at Almeria, and Mallorca and Alaves also drew a blank.