Atletico Madrid inflicted a humiliating defeat on its guest, defending champion Barcelona, by sweeping 4-0, on Thursday, in the first leg of the semi-finals of the Spanish Cup, putting one foot in the final before the return match on March 3 (March).Argentine coach Diego Simeone's team took full advantage of the fragility of the Catalan guest's defense to score its four goals in the first half.The start was disastrous for Barcelona, as they found themselves behind after 6 minutes on friendly fire when Eric Garcia returned the ball to goalkeeper Joan Garcia, who failed to deal with the ball and it fell into his net.Barcelona did not get a chance to catch its breath, as its net shook again in the 14th minute with a goal from its former French player Antoine Griezmann after a pass from Argentine Nahuel Molina.Firmin Lopes had the opportunity to bring the visitors back into the atmosphere of the match, but luck was against him after his shot bounced off the crossbar (20), then the danger moved to the opposite side, and Argentine Julian Alvarez almost scored the third goal, but Frenchman Jules Condé was in the right place...
But Atletico Madrid did not wait long to take advantage of the fragility of the Catalan defense and score the third goal through Nigerian newcomer Ademola Lookman with a beautiful shot after a pass from Alvarez (30).German coach Hansi Flick tried to remedy the situation, bringing in veteran Polish striker Robert Lewandowski instead of Marc Casado (37).But this change did not bear fruit, and Barcelona found itself trailing by a fourth goal before the end of the first half with a wonderful shot by Alvarez after a pass from Lockman (2+45).According to «Opta» statistics, Barcelona has only conceded four goals in the first half once since 2004-2005 at least, and that was against Bayern Munich when it was humiliated in August (August) 2020 with a score of 2-8 in the quarter-finals of the Champions League in Lisbon during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.Barcelona thought they had found their way into the net in the 51st minute through Pau Coparsi following a free kick taken by Lewandowski, but «VAR» intervened and after a review that lasted for more than 5 minutes the goal was disallowed due to the defender being offside...
Atletico then resorted to applying the best thing it is good at, which is completely closing its area, which made the task difficult for Barcelona to reach the penalty area and try to maintain hopes of retaining the title, then the matter became more difficult when it lost the efforts of Alex Garcia with a red card late in the match (85).
