Barcelona vs Atlético Madrid Champions League 01-04-2014

FC Barcelona vs Atlético Madrid
Football: Champions League, quarter-finals
Date: Tuesday, 1 April 2014 – 20:45 CET
Stadium: Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain

FC Barcelona team are now sitting second in the table being just one point away from Atlético Madrid. Blaugrana happened to have some gaffes during the season but it is now 5 games since the last such – on the 8th of March Barça was beaten 1:0 by Real Valladolid at Estadio Municipal José Zorrilla. Since then, Diego Simeone’s players won their second leg in Champions League against Manchester City and added to their account four league victories. These include crushing Osasuna 7:0 and Celta de Vigo 3:0 (both at Camp Nou) and two higly important wins on the road – 3:4 against Real Madrid in El Clásico and 0:1 against Espanyol Barcelona during the last game week. In this city derby it was Messi’s penalty kick which gave Barcelona three points. During the game Neymar, Messi and Pedro also had some pretty good chances of scoring a goal. In this year Champions League Blaugrana lost only one game on the road – 2:1 in Amsterdam against Ajax back in November. Martino must play without his 1st goalkeeper Valdes since he has recently caught a long-term injury.

FC Barcelona: Pinto – Dani Alves, Pique, Mascherano, Jordi Alba – Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta – Neymar, Messi, A. Sanchez.

Atlético Madrid are now the leaders of the La Liga. Following their last weekend’s hard victory over Athletic Bilbao Los Rojiblancos are now a point clear of FC Barcelona. At San Mames it was Bilbao who scored the first goal early in the match. Atlético leveled after around 15 minutes with Costa’s brilliant strike and took the lead with 55 minutes on the clock thanks to Koke’s goal. For Atlético it was the 6th victory in a row within which they conceded only two goals. In the league they have recently beaten Athletic Bilbao (1:2), Granada (1:0), Betis Sevilla (0:2), Espanyol Barcelona (1:0) and Celta de Vigo (0:2). As far as the Champions League is concerned Atlético faced in the last 16 round AC Milan. In the first leg at San Siro Altetico managed to score a goal and win the game with a 0:1 result. In the second leg Diego Simeone’s men outclassed the Italians with a 4:1 victory. There are no major injuries to bother Atlético Madrid. 

Atletico Madrid: Courtois – Juanfran, Godin, Miranda, Filipe – Gabi, Mario Suarez – Koke, Arda Turan, C. Rodriguez – Diego Costa.

Head to Head:

Last Meeting: 11/01/2014 Atlético Madrid vs FC Barcelona 0:0
Wins Barcelona: 19 - Wins Atlético: 13 - Draws: 9

You can watch the match here: Link 1 , Link 2 [Live Scores]