Atlético Madrid took the free-kick but their captain acted like they hadn’t
and Koke Resurrección didn’t get up. He was still sitting where Arda Turan had
left him, two team-mates over him, two opponents in front of him and the
referee looking down at him, seven men standing in a five-metre square, when
Filipe Luís poked the ball to Gabi Fernández. An eighth man walked by, barely a
metre from him. Barcelona’s full-back turned towards the area and their deep
midfielder ambled across, retaking positions they wouldn’t get to. Gabi might
as well have whistled and looked the other way. It was like he wasn’t really
playing – awaiting he played them all.
The ball had been rolling less than 10 seconds; it was six because Gabi had lit the fuse. Koke had only just got to his feet. Torres had only been on the pitch a minute and so had Correa, their first touches an assist and a goal respectively. As for Leo Messi, he hadn’t been off the pitch much longer, temporarily taking a piece of everyone’s mind with him 30 seconds before Atlético’s two subs headed in the other direction. It had all happened so fast. First Barcelona lost Sergio Busquets, then they lost Messi. Now they had lost the victory. Not just any victory, either – one of the biggest of the season. All that happened in nine minutes; the goal happened in nine seconds.
For Barcelona, it had been going so well too. This was the major game of the season so far – the “other clásico,” Marca called it; the “vice-clásico”, AS said – and it came as an opportunity. Over at the Bernabéu, Sergio Ramos had Sergio Ramos-ed – giving away the first goal with a handball before falling to the floor holding his face, and then making up for it by scoring with a header – and Madrid’s record-equalling 16-game winning run had come to an end with a 1-1 draw against Villarreal. Win and Barcelona would be just one point behind Madrid at the top; Atlético, meanwhile, would trail them by four.
Barcelona were winning too. Ivan Rakitic had put them 1-0 up a little before half-time with a header from Andrés Iniesta’s delivery, the 11th time he has opened the scoring for them. He and Iniesta were everywhere and, while chances for a second were few, freedom limited, Barcelona were dominating, Piqué impeccable, Busquets controlling. As one commentator put it: “The problem for Atlético is that there’s only one ball, and it’s Barcelona’s.” But after 51 minutes Busquets went off, suffering illness. And four minutes after that, Messi pulled up, his hand reaching for his groin. Things were to about change. Messi tried to move but couldn’t. He sat, pulled down his sock, untied his boot and departed, kissed by Iniesta and sung off by supporters, eventually taking up his position on the bench. From pulling up to leaving, more than four minutes had passed. Ninety seconds after that, Atlético got a free-kick: Filipe Luís, Gabi, look away, whistle, bang: Torres, Correa, 1-1.
It had all happened so fast. It had all happened together, too. Diego Simeone insisted that the goal’s arrival so soon after Messi’s departure was “coincidental”, and rightly noted that Atlético had improved since the start of the second half – there had been two shots before the goal, both theirs – but Luis Enrique said: “I think that when Leo went off, some doubt was created.” It felt like there was indeed something in that idea, like Messi took somewhat with him; as if he opened the door. Just a little, just a moment, and just enough for Atlético to burst through it.
If so, most teams wouldn’t have even spotted the gap; this felt like a very Atlético goal, the kind of instant that defines them and their manager. Intensity is not just physical; it is mental too. Always in the game, even when you think you’re not – and particularly when, momentarily, the other team is not. Always alert to that moment. To use Graeme Souness’s phrase, always ready to “find the dope” – that chink, that weak link, that fraction of a second when someone switches off – and able to resist long enough to be able to do so. Able, too, to see the opportunity to go for the throat. “They made the first change, a double change, and got the goal,” Luis Enrique said, even if Correa did grin: “that wasn’t exactly the plan.”
There was still half an hour to go but the game had changed now, and there would be no more goals. Ninety minutes. Nine seconds. They ended up weighing the same.
Down on the
bench Messi occasionally shifted uneasily, like an old man trying to get up out
of his rocking chair, as he watched his team chase a winner. There were some
half chances too, mostly through Neymar, but this felt different now. In fact,
you couldn’t help wondering if, with Messi and Busquets off, with Luis Suárez
struggling, Atlético might have done more to take all three points: they’d gone
for the equaliser and got it; perhaps they could have got the winner if they
had gone for that too. “Did you lack ambition?” Gabi was asked. “This team
never lacks ambition,” he replied.
“We changed
in the second half: this is the team we are,” Simeone insisted. “The result was
not what we expected and I think it was not what we deserved,” Luis Enrique
said, adding: “There’s no need to flog ourselves over it.”
On one level
at least, he was right: a draw next to Atlético is no disaster – even if some
Barcelona fans appear to greet every result as a disaster – and still less
without Messi and Busquets. This is Atlético, not just anyone. There is a
certain merit in seeing Antoine Griezmann playing all over the pitch, defending
deep at times, in seeing Saúl have so little impact. “We did not let them
create those transitions that they are unsafe in,” Luis Enrique said. But
still, the sense of loss was palpable. Instead of a solitary point at the top,
Madrid maintain a three-point lead over Barcelona, four over Atlético (and two
over Sevilla).
That sense
of loss was greater with Messi sitting there silently, ice on his groin. He
will be out for three weeks according to the club, because of a torn muscle in
the groin. He will fail to spot games against Sporting and Celta in the league
and Borussia Mönchengladbach in the Champions League. He may miss the next
international break too.